Accident Claim - No Win No Fee

Purple_kitten

I am progressing a claim further to a serious accident earlier this year, and I am about to receive a no win no fee contract to sign.

I have done as much research as possible and it will have all of the insurances etc, but my main question is has anyone else had cause use a no win no fee service? and if so when the contract came through did you then get it reviewed by yet another solicitor, which is what I am pondering over doing?

I am really not sure where to post this so if there is a more relevant board please let me know...

Purple_kitten

Just bouncing this up incase anyone has a responce?

Crazy_Jamie

The Conditional Fee Agreement will more than likely be in a fairly standard format. I would hope that the solicitor has given you a quick run through of what it entails before sending it to you. Assuming that is correct, is there any particular reason that you are concerned about this, or is it just all of the legal jargon contained within the agreement? Getting another solicitor to check it over would, in my opinion, not only be an unusual move but also one that isn't really warranted. If you don't trust your solicitor to pass you something to sign that is entirely kosher and in line with your discussions with him/her, I would question as to why you are trusting them to represent you in a personal injury claim at all.

Purple_kitten

I think it is just a feeling of better safe than sorry. The solicitor did insall confidence me so I am not worried, but I had read about catches in no win no fee agreements mainly through research and just wanted to be sure.

SolicitorMidlands

No Win No Fees are standard nowadays. Have they taken out an "After the Event" insurance policy to protect you?

Purple_kitten

I've received all of the information through this morning, but I haven't read it through yet. They do have a policy for if it's not won, and their success fee's I understand are paid for from "the other side". I will check through the paperwork to double check.

Crazy_Jamie

Purple_kitten wrote: »

I've received all of the information through this morning, but I haven't read it through yet. They do have a policy for if it's not won, and their success fee's I understand are paid for from "the other side". I will check through the paperwork to double check.

Your use of inverted commas suggests a hint of skepticism, but this is all standard. Just by way of a brief explanation, but the general principle in civil litigation is that the loser pays the winner's legal costs in addition to any damages that are paid out. Therefore if you win, whether under a CFA or not, you will ordinarily not pay your own solicitor's costs anyway if the case is over a certain value. Now you lose under a CFA you do not owe your own solicitor anything in costs (hence the 'no win no fee' part), and any liability you have for the other side's costs are met via an After The Event (ATE) insurance policy, so either way you don't pay anything in costs. Obviously there is a risk on the part of your solicitors in taking out a CFA, because if they lose they get no fees, so by way of a balance they are entitled to a 'success fee', which is a percentage added to their base costs, at the end of the case. That success fee is paid by the other side exactly the same as ordinary costs are (in fact when the costs are calculated, it is as simple as coming to a total and adding an appropriate percentage to get the final figure). So either way you incur no liability for costs.

If you any further questions about CFAs by all means feel free to ask them here. There are a number of members on here who know enough about them to answer most, if not all, of your questions. All of the legal jargon can be off putting, and members of the public often think of them as 'too good to be true', but they are entirely standard in personal injury litigation and entirely legitimate.

Purple_kitten

I think my issue is it has been a difficult decision to decide to go ahead with it.

Thank you for your help, the use of inverted comma's wasn't meant as scepticism, I just didn't want to name the company for obvious reasons.

I am sure when I read it through tomorrow I will have more questions, so please bear with me.

Crazy_Jamie

Purple_kitten wrote: »

I think my issue is it has been a difficult decision to decide to go ahead with it.

Personal injury litigation can be a taxing process, but you can take some heart from the fact that a solicitor's firm is willing to take your case on a CFA at all. Simply put, if they didn't think you had good prospects of success they wouldn't have taken it on.

Purple_kitten wrote:

I am sure when I read it through tomorrow I will have more questions, so please bear with me.

No problem. Feel free to post any questions as and when they arise.