No Win No Fee Solicitors London

What is No Win No Fee?

A no win no fee solicitors agreement, also known as a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA), helps protect you from financial risk when making a claim. It is a contract between you and your no win no fee personal injury solicitors.

At Osbornes Law our no win no fee lawyers have used these agreements for many years to fund personal injury and clinical negligence cases, allowing access to justice for thousands of clients who would otherwise be unable to afford the legal fees or to bear the financial risk of losing. There are no upfront fees and you only pay a contribution from your compensation settlement if you win.

Government policy and the changes to No Win No Fee claims

The No Win No Fee claims arrangements granted ordinary people access to justice without the worry of being saddled with unaffordable legal bills and other costs. Legislation enacted by the government back in 1999 made the defendant liable for the cost of funding.

This was the principle of ‘polluter pays’, so that the cost of running those cases which did not succeed was met by a levy, or a success fee, together with an insurance premium, on the cases which did succeed, both paid by the losing defendant.

Defendants and their insurers did not like having to meet these additional costs and the insurance industry lobbied hard for a change in the law.

In January 2010, Lord Justice Jackson published a report on costs in the civil justice system. Jackson recommended that insurance policy premiums and success fees should no longer be charged to defendants. Instead these costs should be paid by the winning claimant themselves from their compensation.

Our no win no fee lawyers and other groups that represent injured claimants strongly opposed Jackson’s recommendations. However, the Government went ahead and implemented many of the changes proposed by Lord Justice Jackson in the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (“LASPO”) which means that from April 2013 accident victims will have to contribute towards their costs from their compensation.

The success fee contribution is set at a maximum of 25% of the compensation recovered for pain and suffering and past losses.