No Win No Fee Accident Lawyer /Attorneys

Conditional Fee Arrangements

The transformation of the legal environment

It is a known fact that costs and expense have gone over the roof. No matter who you are these rising expenses have hit you in some way. Even legal services are now something that even large companies think twice before taking. The fact is that people want to avoid such expenses as there in no guarantee that you will win your case. This is why many legal companies and lawyers have started to offer services, in which they only charge you if the case or lawsuit is a success. More commonly known as “No Win No Fee” services, these have grown very popular in the last couple of years.

I’m sure many of you would be interested in knowing how this arrangement works. Ill just give you a brief overview, to make it understandable for you. This is also known as CFA (conditional fee arrangement) and is the basis on which your lawyer will be paid. CFA basically spreads out the risk between the client and legal representative. So, it is ultimately a risk sharing mechanism, in case of an unsuccessful claim. This service is mostly available in cases such as, personal injury claims, but CFA’s are also available in clinical negligence claims, employment, libel, inability to get sme loans and product liability claims.

It is important to be aware of the key features of a CFA with a No win No fee agreement. Firstly you have to decide upon an uplift fee that the lawyer would be entitled to other than the regular fee in case of a successful claim. This uplift or success fee can be up to a 100% of the normal fee that the lawyer charges. This success fee is set by the lawyer at the outset through a risk analysis which assesses the chances of the claim being unsuccessful. Under this arrangement there can be two possible outcomes:
a) If the claim is unsuccessful, then the lawyer won’t receive any fee.
b) If the claim is successful, the no win no fee lawyer is to be paid the normal fee along with the set success fee. In reality though a proportion of these will be covered by the unsuccessful party, as explained below.

When involved in a negligence claim, lawyers must carry out the risk analysis as accurately as possible keep hold of it on a file. In this case if the claim is successful the uplift fee can be recovered from the losing party. The percentage uplift though, can be challenged and a judge might need to interfere to determine its accuracy. If the judge feels that the uplift fee is too high or overstated he can reduce it or might ask for the fee to be paid in different stages in the claim.

One of the most common queries that people have with this kind of arrangement is that, whether a no win no fee solicitor is entitled to take a cut of the damages recovered in personal injury claim? Well, the answer to this is in fact no. the arrangement where the no win no fee lawyer can take a cut of these damages that are recovered is currently permissible in the United States of America, but is not allowed anywhere else.

The main reason why people are looking for this service now days rather than the normal arrangement is that they want to avoid large bills even when they loose the claim. So it can be a useful way for people to kind of insure there lawyer fee. Most law firms today offer this service and you would be sure to find one if you look for it, as it also allows these firms to engage in Customer relationship management and retain their customer for future.