no win no fee

[kaliber12]

has any one used this and is it true you fay nothing if you lose

[Buenchico]

I've not used the system but here's an example of why you should be cautious about entering into such an agreement:

Let's say that you slip on a wet floor in a supermarket. You twist your knee badly and you're off work for a month. A 'no win, no fee' legal firm suggest that you should sue the supermarket company.

However, when it comes to court, the supermarket firm produce video evidence to show that the another customer caused the spill only seconds before you slipped and that, because they could not reasonably have been expected to respond to the spill in such a short time, they are not guilty of negligence. Without evidence of negligence, you'd lose your case.

Your legal firm would honour their pledge and not charge you any fee. However, the supermarket firm might ask the court to order that you should pay their legal costs. For the scenario I've created these might be anywhere in the range of �1000 to �5000. (For a medical claim which spends years going through the courts, one side could run up costs running into millions of pounds). These costs aren't covered by the 'no win, no fee' arrangement and you'd be left with a large bill.

Chris

[JanineG]

Chris makes a point in relation to the liability issues. However, insofar as the huge bill you'd be stuck with for the other side's costs, this would be covered by an After The Event Insurance Policy - that Insurance would pay any liability for the other party's costs that you may incur - which means it would still not cost you anything.

Also - going back to Chris' scenario - if the supermarket produced such evidence, it wouldn't be likely that any Solicitor worth their salt would suggest that the matter go to Court in the first place - the majority of these claims are settled before Court proceedings are even commenced.

Going back to Kaliber12's question - the answer is: Yes, it is true that you pay nothing if you lose. Also, if you're successful, your Solicitor's costs will be recovered from the Defendants also - which is why the adverts always confirm that you will keep 100% of the damages recovered.

If you have any other queries - let me know.

Janine