Most people who make a claim do not pay any legal fees upfront. Instead, they choose to sign a ‘no win, no fee’ agreement. This type of agreement stipulates that the claimant does not have to pay for their lawyer’s fees out of their own pocket if their case loses, but also that the lawyer gets a percentage of damages awarded as a ‘success fee’ if their case wins.
As such, such agreements make the affordability of injury lawyers largely irrelevant.
‘No win, no fee’ does not mean all lawyers cost the same
The document that sets out the details of no win, no fee is called the CFA, or ‘conditional fee agreement’. This is a legally binding, written agreement between lawyer and claimant. In this agreement, a lawyer’s success fee should be included and easy to access.
As of April 2013, lawyers have been permitted to set a percentage of the damages you recover as their success fee – however this percentage cannot exceed 25%.It is the success fee percentage that will decide how affordable your injury lawyer is. It is industry-standard for lawyers to take a minimum of 10%, but most will take upwards of 15%. Lawyers are, after all, legally entitled to up to 25% of your damages. The thing to remember is that the CFA is legally binding between you and your lawyer, so the success fee can’t be increased.
UK Claim Lawyers operate on a no win, no fee basis so you won’t have to pay any legal fees upfront and can sit back while your injury lawyer works hard to get you your compensation.
Success fees
Lawyers can set a success fee of up to 25%. Most will have a set or standard success fee percentage based on the value of cases. On smaller cases (up to £50,000), the success fee may be as high as 25%, but on larger cases (up to and over £1,000,000) the success fee may be as low as 10%, and vice versa. Most of the time there is very little room for negotiation, as lawyers are always in high demand and most of them can take or leave cases, often picking the one’s that will pay the most.
But don’t be deterred. It is possible to find injury lawyers who will agree to take a lower success fee, depending on the circumstances of your case – if your claim is straight-forward, for example, the risk will be low so there may be some room for movement.
Are you looking for affordable injury lawyers? Perhaps you want to discover your elibility to make a claim? If so, give UK Claim Lawyers a call on 0800 157 1438 today.