Conditional Fees and Contingency Fees - "No Win No Fee"
Conditional Fee Agreements and Contingency Fee Agreements are two very different ways of trying to achieve the same result: allowing you to have access to professional legal advice and representation with minimum risk and without having to pay out large sums of money in legal fees as a case progresses.
What happens if you lose your case?
Both Conditional Fee Agreements and Contingency Fee Agreements are sometimes referred to as No Win No Fee Agreements. The reason for this is fairly straightforward. In the case of both types of agreements, if you lose your case ("No Win"), we as your solicitor will not receive any fees for the work that we have carried out under the terms of the agreement ("No Fee").
That of course means that we only get paid if you win, and for that reason it is in our commercial interests as much as yours that the case is successful. It also means that we will not advise you to pursue a hopeless case, since we will not receive any fees if you lose.
What happens if you win your case?
This is where Conditional Fee Agreements and Contingency Fee Agreements are very different.
In a Conditional Fee Agreement, if you win your case, you will not pay any of our fees yourself. The reason for this is that in certain types of cases, for example personal injury claims, setting aside a statutory demand or a claim for damages for defamation, if your claim is successful your opponent is likely to be ordered to pay your legal costs as well as any damages that they may be ordered to pay to you. We only accept the legal costs that your opponent is ordered to pay, so you pay nothing yourself.
In Contingency Fee Agreements, if you win your case, we will charge you a percentage of the damages that you recover. The reason for this is that in certain types of case, such as unfair dismissal claims or claims for criminal injuries compensation, it is rare for there to be an order for your legal costs to be met by your opponent. Rather than charging you for the time that we spend dealing with your case, we charge you an agreed percentage of any damages or award successfully recovered for you. By doing this, you can be sure at the outset that you will receive a substantial amount of any damages or award regardless of how much work we do and how much time we spend acting on your behalf.
After the Event Insurance.
Sometimes, if you lose a claim, you may be ordered to pay your opponents costs and you may also be liable for disbursements incurred as your case progresses, such as experts reports or counsel's fees.
If there is a risk in a particular case of you being liable for opponents costs or disbursements, we will advise you to take out an insurance policy. This insurance policy will be activated if you lose your claim and will pay out for the opponents costs and disbursements so you will pay nothing.
There are a couple of great features about some of these policies that make them particularly attractive for you. The first is that the premium for the policy is often deferred until the end of the case, so that you do not need to pay for it as the case progresses. The second is that the premium is often "self-insuring" meaning that if your case loses, the insurance policy covers its own premium meaning that you pay nothing at all. If on the other hand you win, the reasonable costs of the premium can be recovered together with the rest of the costs from your opponent.
We will only advise you to take out After the Event Insurance when it is in your best interests to do so. When we do advise you to take out After the Event Insurance we will refer your case to a leading, respected After the Event Insurance broker who will consider all of the suitable policies on the market and provide details of the policies with the best cover for you.
Unlike some other firms, we never receive any form of commission for recommending you to take out a particular After the Event Insurance policy. This provides you with the confidence that we will only advise you to take out After the Event Insurance if you need it and then we will only advise you to take out the best policy available.
Initial Investigation Fees
In some cases, we will charge an initial investigation fee. If an initial investigation fee applies, we will clearly state that an initial investigation fee applies both in the fees section of the relevant web page and in any initial communications and correspondence with you. We will require payment of the fee before we start any work on your behalf.
The initial investigation fee enables us to carry out sometimes extensive investigations into your case, obtain detailed information from you, review documents, form an opinion as to the likelihood of success of your case and provide a report to you detailing the outcome of our preliminary investigations.
If following the initial investigations into your case we consider that you have good prospects of success we will then be prepared to deal with the remainder of your case under a Conditional Fee Agreement or Contingency Fee Agreement.
Other Ways of Funding Your Case
There may be other means available to you of funding your case.
These include an existing policy of insurance, such as your vehicle insurance policy or your household insurance policy. They may also include Trade Union funding for certain types of case and in very limited circumstances, there may be free Community Legal Advice or "legal aid" available.
We will normally ask you whether you have any of these alternative means of funding your case available to you before we enter into a Contingency Fee Agreement or Conditional Fee Agreement with you and if you have another form of funding this may effect our advice to you to enter into a No Win No Fee Agreement.
Types of Case that we deal with under a Contingency Fee Agreement
- with an Initial Investigation Fee
- with no Initial Investigation Fee
Reclaim Bank Charges - 30% (+ VAT) of charges recovered.
Types of Case that we deal with under a Conditional Fee Agreement
- with an Initial Investigation Fee
Clinical Negligence - £250 (+ VAT) ) if claim is successful and costs are
Defamation - £2000 (+ VAT)
) recovered from your opponent.
- with no Initial Investigation Fee
