We are not a claims management company and there is no need to finance any claim as it proceeds and you will never be asked to take out any loan or pay for any expenses or insurance policy.
Agreements which are known as Conditional Fee Agreements (CFA) are the most common way of funding a claim for personal injury compensation. Their introduction coincided with the demise of legal aid for most personal injury claims. The basic principle of a CFA is straightforward in that if a solicitor agrees to act on your behalf under such an agreement they will not expect to be paid any fees if your claim is unsuccessful. The reason that solicitors will act on this basis is that if your claim is successful then they will have the right to recover legal costs from the defendants on top of your award for damages. It follows that solicitors will only accept cases on this basis if they feel that you have a good chance of winning the case.
What you can be assured of is that no win no fee solicitors will be entirely up front with you as to your prospects of success at all stages of the case. This is important for you because whilst you do not have to pay your own solicitors’ costs if you lose the case you may face having to pay your opponent’s legal costs. Insurance policies can be taken out to cover this eventuality and it is not uncommon for people to actually have these insurance policies without realising it. Quite often this type of insurance is sold in conjunction with home contents policies or even credit cards or car insurance. In addition, if you are a member of a trade union the union will normally agree to pay your opponent’s costs if you do pursue a claim for personal injury and are unsuccessful.
If you have an existing legal expense policy at the time of your accident then a solicitor can act under the terms of the policy to pursue a claim on your behalf. In such instances you should contact your solicitor and explain that you have legal expense insurance and then ask your solicitor to contact the legal expense provider in order to establish if they can act on your behalf under the terms of the policy.
If you do not have a pre-existing legal expense policy or you cannot find a firm of no win no fee solicitors to accept your case then if you do wish a solicitor to act on your behalf you will need to consider financing the case privately. This is a route of last resort and is likely to prove to be an expensive avenue to justice. On a very straightforward case you should expect to have to pay over £2,000 in costs. If you do choose this course of action you should think long and hard about the decision. If several firms of solicitors have already refused to act on your behalf on a CFA basis then it is likely that they have all formed the same opinion that you do not have a good chance of winning the case.
