National Society

Even to solicitors and barristers, the legal process is complicated.  Laws are slightly different between England, Scotland and Wales, to say nothing of Northern Ireland.  And of course, the laws regarding various subjects vary widely.  Employment law is different from personal injury law, and both of those vary from family law.  The one constant is that legal advice is expensive, and in some instances this can bar people from obtaining the legal assistance they need.

Since the reduction of legal aid in 2000, a new option has become available: the no win no fee compensation scheme.  Under this scheme, the solicitor is paid his or her fee only upon success.  If you lose your case, the fee is not paid, though many solicitors request that you purchase insurance against that eventuality. 

No win no fee legal has advantages and drawbacks, as many things do.  Some fees will be due, such as fees for the After The Event insurance, recordation fees, or fees to request copies of case documents from third parties.  However, the larger fee for the solicitor is not due unless you win. This can be a huge advantage if your case involves loss of work and therefore income.

Examination of the conditional fee agreement, which you and the attorney will both sign, is critical to understanding the duties and responsibilities of each party in the case, and should be read thoroughly before signing.  Your local Citizens Advice Bureau may be a good source for help and information regarding the no win no fee agreement, and whether or not you should sign it.

No win no fee is a type of compensation agreement offered by some personal injury solicitors. Basically, no win no fee compensation agreements mean that you only pay your solicitor’s fees if you win your case. These agreements are also referred to as conditional fee agreements (CFA), as paying the fees is conditional on the case being won.

While this type of claim has been used in the US for a long time, no win no fee injury claims are relatively new to the UK. No win no fees were only introduced in the UK during the mid 1990s with the goal of reducing the burden on the legal aid system. Legal aid is a means of providing legal representation to those who cannot otherwise afford it. Personal injury claims were highly taxing to this system, so the Law Society agreed to allow no win no fee personal injury claims. There is one key difference between no win no fee cases in the UK and the US. In the UK, if you win your case, your solicitor’s fees will likely be paid by the opposing party. In the US, these fees are paid out of the compensation that is won.

Some are sceptical of no win no fee cases, as they are concerned that solicitors now have a stake in their clients’ cases. In this way, the worry is that some solicitors may inflate compensation costs, or only take those that are likely to have a high winning total. Not all solicitors have conditional fee agreements and they do not have to offer them. Those that do will assess any case prior to agreeing to this type of payment schedule to ensure the case is likely to win.

There are a number of misconceptions about what you can and cannot claim for when it comes time to make a personal injury claim. Exactly how much you should receive from a no win no fee injury claim in terms of compensation varies depending on a wide variety of factors and circumstances. Your no win no fee solicitor will know exactly how you should be compensated based upon the personal injury claim being made. As a general rule, you are entitled to compensation for any type of losses suffered as a result of the accident, which can include damage to clothing and property, any insurance fees, loss of earnings, pain and suffering, and legal fees. If you are making an accident claim or personal injury claim as a result of an automobile accident, you could be compensated for the cost of a new car, not to mention any fees for renting a car in the interim.

There are two types of compensation that you could receive: general and special damages. Special damages are any quantifiable expenses which are easily determined, such as loss of earnings and medical expenses. Make sure to keep a record of such expenses to use when you make a personal injury claim. General damages are required to be assessed, such as pain and suffering or your future loss of earnings as a result of the accident. Your no win no fee lawyer will be able to discuss the finer points in greater detail with you to determine which types of competition you are eligible for, and how much.

No win no fee agreements are made between a law firm and potential clients. Specifically in the case of personal injury claims, a no win no fee agreement between the client and lawyer enables the lawyer to take on any sort of personal injury case based upon the understanding that if they happen to lose the case the no win no fee lawyer is still compensated under the Conditional Fee Agreement, allowing the no win no fee solicitor to recoup any losses while allowing the claimant to suffer no penalties or fees as a result of losing the case. In the case that the no win no fee lawyer wins the case they are entitled to whatever standard fees generally apply, including a success fee, or bonus. According to UK law, these additional fees can never exceed 100% of the standard fee of the lawyer.

In a case where the client happens to win their no win no fee personal injury case, the court or the losing party’s insurer is required to pay any sort of associated fees as a result of losses, damages, or medical expenses. The insurer is required to pay the client’s legal costs, as well as the bonus requested by the winning lawyer. As a result of this system it is extremely rare for an individual making a personal injury claim to pay their own fees, making for a system in which any citizen is eligible to receive compensation from a no win no fee injury claim.

There are a wide variety of no win no fee accidents that can happen to people regardless of whether or not they are in the workplace or the public domain. Some of the most common types of no win no fee accidents for which individuals are eligible to claim compensation include accidents at work, slipping and tripping accidents, car accidents, incompetent treatment in a medical facility, motorcycle accidents, and dental accidents. In each case, every individual is eligible to file for no win no fee compensation under the UK laws stipulating that every person in the country has a right to compensation if they have been injured in some way due to the negligence of others.

Personal injury claims can take anywhere from weeks to years depending on the type of accident. Many people worry about the practical aspects of these claims, especially the cost. Most personal injury claims never make it to court, instead being settled somewhere along the way by a no win no fee lawyer working within the boundaries of the law. The first thing you need to do if you have suffered some form of injury is contact a no win no fee solicitor. They will help guide you along in the process and let you know which type of personal injury claim you might be eligible for based upon where and how your injury occurred. Just remember that if you find yourself injured due to someone else’s negligence, you need to file a claim under the no win no fee compensation programme in order to ensure that your fees are paid for you, rather than out of your own pocket.

No win no fee compensation claims are the single most common type of insurance claims made in the UK. The system was put in place to ensure that all people have equal rights to accident protection, regardless of whose fault the accident was. Specifically, it was put in place for individuals who were involved in an accident that was not their fault, thus allowing them to claim some form of compensation regardless of their financial or physical state. No win no fee compensation works by ensuring that everyone is covered, and everyone receives fair compensation.

No win no fee compensation claims are handled by no win no fee lawyers who specialize in personal injury claims and accident claims. Regardless of which insurance company you are with, you are entitled to file no win no fee compensation claims. Your insurance solicitor will help you through the entire process, giving you advice and guidance as well as making sure your accident claims or personal injury claims are taken as seriously as possible.

In order to make a compensation claim you need to call your insurance company first, then contact your nearest no win no fee solicitor to get the ball rolling. Once you have discussed your personal accident claim or personal injury claim with your no win no fee lawyer, your information will be entered into the system and your solicitor will begin working within the court system to settle your accident claim or personal injury claim as quickly and as efficiently as possible, making sure you receive what you are due. 

The Campaign for Clear English regularly draws attention to the mangling the English language undergoes at the hands of lawyers.

Indeed, it often appears that the legal profession has taken it in their hands to create some of the most unwieldy, opaque, muddled and muddied prose sentences to have sullied a sheet of paper.

Whether deliberate or not, the arcane phrases, the Latin structure and the garbled word order are often enough to send the most diligent petitioner scurrying home, clutching at their hair in abject frustration at their rightful inability to make neither head nor tail of what should be a readily understandable piece of information.

However, hope is at hand. Any good no win no fee personal injury solicitor will openly explain the abstruse jargon used to pursue your no win, no fee claim for compensation to you in clear, everyday English.

If you still struggle with anything in your claim, press your solicitor to explain in language that you understand; there is no shame in this. Often the ‘no win, no fee’ solicitor will be so used to speaking in jargon with colleagues and other lawyers that he will completely forget there is a world outside the courtroom.

Additionally, a good ‘no win, no fee’ personal injury claims solicitor will be a member of the Solicitor’s Regulation Authority. It was specifically created to support members of the public with their quest for personal injury compensation. It recognises the difficulties of legal jargon and has impressed upon the profession the need for clarity. By so doing, you should at all times be under no misconceptions about how your claim is being presented.

A frequently asked question when deciding whether or not to undertake a ‘no win, no fee’ compensation claim is the thorny problem of a full disclosure of documents.

Now, although most claims are reasonably straightforward there may come a point in the case where one side refuses to present certain key evidence. This is the juncture of proceedings where an experienced ’no win, no fee’ personal injury solicitor is worth his salt.

Right at the inception of the hearing, the solicitor will have served the defendant or claimant with a demand for certain documents. These will often pertain to matters such as loss of earnings or prior work accidents.

If these documents are refused, then the solicitor will instigate a court order to force their production. If the defendant or claimant again refuses to comply with the request, the court has full jurisdiction to dismiss the case in favour of the aggrieved party.

Although there is a set of documents that is classed as privileged – personal letters between the solicitor and his client – virtually any other document can be forcibly disclosed.

A further advantage of this system is that it allows all documentation to be visible to both parties. If either one recognises that his opponent has the upper hand, he can decide that perhaps an out-of-court settlement might be quicker and cheaper.

A ‘no win, no fee’ solicitor would soon indicate this option if he thought it the only viable option. To receive no win, no fee compensation, a no win, no fee lawyer will see the case through to the end.

When entering into a no win no fee agreement for personal injury compensation, it is of paramount importance to discuss the details of the claim and all aspects of the financial settlement with your solicitor. In so doing you will ensure that all the compensation awarded to you, by the court, goes directly into your pocket.

A ‘no win, no fee’ agreement means precisely that; should your claim be unsuccessful, then you are not liable to pay any fees to your solicitor.

Your solicitor may recommend that you need to take out an After the Event insurance policy to cover things such as costs of the legal case. Costs are the price of getting your medical records, finding witnesses to support your personal injury claim and to gather all the accident reports pertinent to your case.

Furthermore, when your case is taken on by the personal injury solicitor, the After the Event insurance policy effectively means that the negligent party’s legal fees are already covered – leaving you with the amount of the awarded compensation.

This is particularly useful if your personal injury solicitor has a success fee built into the contract. This is perfectly legal and covers the risk of the personal injury solicitor receiving no fees from pursuing your claim.

Your After the Event insurance policy effectively means that the amount is recovered from the negligent party.

So, look carefully at the terms of the potential ‘no win, no fee’ personal injury claim contract to ensure that the full amount of the compensation awarded to you remains in your pocket – not somebody else’s.

A legal review of the country’s civil justice system headed by Lord Justice Jackson has severely criticised the current system of the controversial ‘no win, no fee’ agreements, more properly known as Condition Fee Agreements. It is claimed that there are lawyers who have become very rich under the present system, which Lord Justice Jackson was “the most bizarre and expensive system that it is possible to devise”.

New proposals from the judge recommend that lawyers should be paid out by the winning side, with success fees capped at 25 per cent of the total payout. As compensation, Lord Justice Jackson in his report, proposed that to ensure that lawyers did not lose out financially after the changes, courtroom damages for “pain, suffering and loss of amenity” should increase by 10 per cent.

The new proposals differ from the system currently operating whereby the losing defendants must pay the winning lawyers’ “success fee” and costly insurance premiums which can leave them with a total bill of four times the cost of the action. The changes proposed, it is claimed, would save the taxpayer millions of pounds by cutting the costs of litigation. For example, in the past three years the cost of health negligence claims jumped by a third to £770 million a massive amount out of the health care budget. These figures illustrate that often the legal costs far outstripped the level of damages paid out.

It is also claimed that these radical proposals could also see a fall in spurious libel and personal injury cases, leading to them being described as a victory for freedom of speech. Celebrities who win claims against newspapers and magazines for example would be forced to pay lawyers’ fees from their pay-out, which it is thought may see a fall in this kind of action.

The changes to the rules governing no win no fee cases will require primary legislation and copies of this have been given to the Justice secretary Jack Straw and his opposite number Dominic Grieve on the opposition benches.