No Win No Fee Agreements – Richards Thomas Solicitors

No Win No Fee Solicitors

Are you worried about legal fees? For the majority of the personal injury claims we pursue for our clients, we are able to offer No Win No Fees. Under a No Win No Fee, you can rest assured in the knowledge that if your claim is unsuccessful, you won’t have to pay any money.

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At Richards Thomas we have been helping clients obtain compensation under No Win No Fees for years. Get in touch with us today.

What is a No Win No Fee

This is basically our agreement with you to pursue a compensation claim and if you don’t win, provided you keep the terms of the agreement, you won’t be charged for the work we do. It’s simply a way of allowing you to pursue a claim, without any financial risk, and without paying fees upfront.

What type of claim can I make under a No Win No Fee?

Normally, these are used in personal injury claims, but we may be able to offer them in other types of cases too.

Some of the personal injury claims we offer No Win No Fees for include:

Road Traffic Injuries
Slips, Trips & Falls
Workplace Injuries
Mental Health & Psychological Injuries
Child Injury Claims
Illness
Fatal Incidents
Defective Products
Medical Negligence

How we charge under a No Win No Fee

We apply hourly rates to the time we spend dealing with your case. If you win your case, our fees become payable; we total up the time we have spent to form our basic charges. In addition, we also charge for payments made to other people involved in the case, such as experts and barristers, as well as any court fees paid.

What happens if I lose my claim?

Provided you keep the terms of the agreement, there will be no charge for our fees. In most cases that we offer No Win No Fees, we also take out insurance on your behalf known as After the Event insurance (ATE) to protect you from having to pay for payments made to other people, like experts and barristers, and court fees, should you lose your case. If your claim is unsuccessful, you would not have to pay for the cost of the insurance premium unless, again, you failed to keep to the terms of the agreement (such as if it was found that you had acted dishonestly).

What happens if I win my claim?

If you win your case, the insurers for the party responsible for your injury or illness will pay compensation as well as legal costs (unless your case is a whiplash injury claim valued at under £5,000). In the vast majority of cases, the legal costs paid by the insurers are unlikely to cover all of the legal costs incurred. That is because in most cases, only fixed legal costs are recoverable. If there is any shortfall in our charges, then this is payable by you together with a success fee and the cost of the premium of any ATE insurance policy taken out. You don’t have to worry about paying for these charges out of your own pocket as these are payable at the end of your case, directly from the compensation received.

What is a success fee and why can my solicitor charge one?

A success fee is a bonus fee a solicitor charges you out of your compensation, if you win your case. A solicitor is allowed to do this because the solicitor is the one taking on all the risk in offering clients a no win no fee; a solicitor doesn’t earn anything under a no win no fee if you lose your case.

The success fee is set by the solicitor at the start of your case and reflects the risks involved particular to your case. It is calculated as a percentage of the solicitor’s basic charges. If you win your case, the success fee payable cannot exceed 25% of the compensation you receive for the pain, suffering and loss of amenity experienced because of your injuries, as well as the expenses and losses you have incurred (future losses, like future loss of earnings, are ringfenced).

How much will be taken out of my compensation if I win?

This depends on a number of factors including the complexity of the case, when the case settles, how much compensation is paid, the charges your solicitor has incurred dealing with your case, whether your solicitor has any shortfall in the charges recovered from the insurer of the party responsible for your injury or illness, and the amount of success fee payable. It could be as much as 40% or 50% as little 10 to 25%.

Before any charges are deducted from the compensation, we will go through these with you to make sure that you fully understand and approve how them.

What happens if I win a whiplash claim for under £5,000?

If you win a whiplash claim and your injuries are valued at less than £5,000, you’re unlikely to be able to recover any legal fees from the insurer at fault for the collision.

Don’t worry, we can still offer you a No Win No Fee so that you can get the advice you need to pursue your claim, without the financial risk.

If you win, our charges will be capped at 40% of the compensation, plus any disbursements (medical expert’s fee, court fees). If you lose, provided you keep to the terms, you won’t be charged.

Why choose Richards Thomas to make a No Win No Fee Claim?

At Richards Thomas Solicitors we have proven success. We provide a professional and caring approach, giving each new personal injury case our undivided attention, whilst walking you through each step of the process.