We fully understand that not everyone can afford to take on the costs and risks of litigation.
We are here to help you get justice and so we always consider whether we can offer an agreement or whether we can act for you using your Legal Expenses Insurance. Please note that not every case will be suitable for this fee structure.
We will explain all of this in more detail to you, before you sign any agreement with us.
As a general guide, legal expenses assistance is only available where you have existing legal expenses insurance, or your case is of high value. This typically means a case of £400,000 or more. In order for us to assess whether your case is viable for legal expenses assistance, we would need to obtain a barrister’s opinion on the prospects of success, the costs of which will need to be borne by you. If you are not sure if your case is suitable for this fee structure, we encourage you to contact us and we can assess your case.
The 2 main types of legal expenses assistance that we may be able to offer are:
Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA)
A conditional fee agreement is where the fees for your claim are deferred until the conclusion of the case. The fees refer to our costs but generally you would still be expected to pay the disbursements upfront as the case goes along. Disbursements are things like court fees, expert fees and barristers’ costs. You will have to pay these whether you win or lose, but sometimes ATE insurance can cover these.
If the case does not succeed, you will not have to pay us anything in respect of our own costs.
If you win your case, or it is settled out of court, we will charge you our full fees at the agreed hourly rate (our base costs) and you will be notified how those costs are rising every 6 months. This way you will get no nasty surprises. On top of these costs, you will pay a success fee which is a percentage of your damages. This is agreed beforehand with you and is always capped so again, there will be no nasty surprises. This is fair as we are sharing the risk with you.
If we win, then almost always we will get a costs order against your opponent and that will pay most of your costs. Any remaining fee is usually taken from your damages although that may be discretionary.
Discounted Conditional Fee Agreement (DCFA)
A DCFA is a CFA with a discounted hourly rate. This means that you’ll pay a portion of our base costs whatever the outcome of the proceedings, but we will not charge you the balance of our full costs if your case is unsuccessful. However, we will almost always succeed in recovering most of our base costs from the opponent, if you win your claim.
Again, we do charge a success fee but as we will be getting paid something whether the case is won or lost, this is never as high a percentage as under a CFA. This percentage will be fully explained to you at the start of the matter and is always tailored to the risk we are taking.
What happens about the opponent’s costs if you lose?
The way to protect yourself against the opponent’s legal costs is by applying for After the Event Insurance.
After The Event (ATE) Insurance
If your case is suitable, we can help you get an insurance policy to help protect you financially if your case is unsuccessful. This will cover you if you have to pay your opponent’s costs after your case has finished. You will be charged a premium for this by the insurance company but often they do not charge you until the end of the case. If you lose the premium will be waived. Obviously, if you win the case, the premium will become due and payable, even though you will not need to claim against the insurance fund.
Please note that if you take out such a policy then the premium cannot be recovered from your opponent in any circumstances.
ATE can also help you to fund the disbursements. This structure is assessed on a case-by-case basis.
Contact Us Today To Discuss Funding Your Case
If you have any questions about the options available for funding your case, please call us today to arrange a free initial consultation.
