The basic position
You will be primarily responsible for paying this firm’s costs and any expenses incurred on your behalf, regardless of any order for costs against your opponent. In litigation the usual rule is that the losing party pays the winning party’s reasonable costs and expenses of pursuing the claim. Accordingly a successful party is generally entitled to recover the majority of their costs from the opponent either by negotiation or by obtaining an appropriate court order. Were you to lose your case, then you would probably be responsible for paying your opponent’s costs.Pursuing a claim at law can be an expensive process. Accordingly we will provide you with detailed information about our costs and the way in which they are calculated.
Obviously, our first concern will be to establish whether there are sufficient grounds to justify bringing a claim on your behalf; for the purposes of this leaflet we shall assume that there are. The next step is to consider what is the most suitable method of funding the claim.
Lansbury Worthington currently offers the following alternative ways of funding your claim:
The traditional private client retainer
This is probably still the most common form of fee arrangement for solicitors and their clients. Under this type of agreement you agree to pay Lansbury Worthington for its professional services for the time spent on your case at an agreed hourly rate.Traditionally the hourly rate has two components: the hourly expense rate (which represents this firm’s overheads), and the uplift, (which represents the profit element of our fees), which is based upon a percentage of the hourly expense rate. The percentage of the uplift depends upon a variety of factors, including the complexity of the case, its urgency, its importance to you and the skill involved. In routine claims the uplift is usually a minimum of 50%.
Lansbury Worthington’s current hourly charging rates are calculated to include both the expense rate and the uplift, in order to simplify the process. The charging rate varies depending upon the seniority and experience of the lawyer handling your claim.
The hourly expense rate and the uplift which make up the hourly charging rate are also known as basic costs. This term, is mentioned again under the heading: Conditional Fee Agreements.
Usually all expenses incurred by the firm on your behalf during the course of your case (these are called: disbursements) are paid either by you directly or by the firm and then refunded by you immediately afterwards. We will try to estimate the disbursements which are likely to be incurred on your behalf, such as Court fees and expert and Barristers’ fees, at our initial interview.
It is common practice with privately funded clients for solicitors to ask for monies on account of costs. These funds are paid into a “client account” in your name, they provide the firm with some security for costs and expenses incurred on your behalf.
It is usual to present privately funded clients with an interim bill every 3 or 6 months. The interim bill is not an exhaustive statement of the full costs due at that date, but it is intended to broadly reflect the amount of work undertaken up to the date of the interim bill. Interim bills are tendered on account of costs due; not in settlement of all the costs incurred up to the date of the invoice.
In the event of a successful outcome, we will make a claim against your opponent for the cost of pursuing your claim on the “standard basis”(this is a scale of costs regulated by the Courts). The standard basis often results in a recovery of between 80% and 90% of the costs that you have actually incurred. The difference lies in the fact that the Court’s policy is to restrict a losing party’s liability for costs: to the reasonable costs of the winner’s solicitors taking steps that progress claim; as opposed to all the costs of advising about the claim and attending you generally.
Civil legal aid
Civil legal aid is generally no longer available to fund personal injury claims. There are some very limited exceptions and we will discuss these with you if we believe that you might qualify. We have a personal injury franchise granted by the Legal Services Commission (LSC).If you are successful you will be issued with a CLS (Community Legal Service) Funding Certificate which would entitle Lansbury Worthington to act for you up to a specified financial limit, and limited to taking certain steps. Provided that there continues to be a reasonable prospect of securing a successful outcome of the claim, it is possible to extend to ambit of the Funding Certificate as appropriate.
The Funding certificate is granted on the condition that you agree to grant the LSC certain rights over any money or property recovered or preserved by you as a result being granted the Funding Certificate. This is termed: the “statutory charge”. The LSC can, in certain circumstances, enforce the Statutory Charge in order to recover any shortfall due to the difference between the costs and expenses paid to Lansbury Worthington and the costs recovered from the opponent on the standard basis. See above.
One of the benefits of a Funding Certificate is that even if you do not succeed, an assisted litigant is rarely ordered to pay his opponent’s costs.
The financial criteria for eligibility for legal aid and the legal advice and assistance scheme are very limited.
Legal expenses insurance cover
This is becoming an increasingly popular means of providing for legal costs. Many clients are unaware that they have the benefit of legal expenses insurance. It is important that you should check whether you already have legal expenses insurance cover; either provided by a dedicated policy or legal expenses cover incorporated in one or more other insurance policies, for example: household or home and contents insurance, motor insurance, even some credit cards provide some legal expenses
The advantages of having a legal expenses insurance policy is obvious. Although you remain primarily responsible to Lansbury Worthington for payment of your fees on a private client retainer basis, your policy will indemnify you against this. The legal expenses insurers will meet not only your opponents costs but also our own in the event that your claim fails or there is a shortfall in the costs actually recovered (see above for an explanation).
Because your entitlement to legal expenses insurance is contractual, there is no means assessment procedure, as with legal aid. However, the indemnity is conditional on there being reasonable prospects of success in defending or bringing your claim. You will need to study the terms and conditions carefully, these vary.
Because a legal expenses Insurer has a legitimate financial interest in the prospects of your claim, you will find that the indemnity provided will be subject to certain terms and conditions set out in your contract / policy of insurance. For example, the Insurer usually stipulates that it can withdraw the indemnity if they or Lansbury Worthington believe that there are no reasonable prospects of success and/or of beating an offer in settlement or payment into Court. The insurance policy usually requires your solicitor to report regularly to the insurer on the progress and merits of the claim.
Lansbury Worthington acts for a number of clients who are funded by legal expenses insurance. If you have legal expenses insurance you have a right to the solicitor of your choice once proceedings have commenced and many Insurance Companies are now prepared to allow you to choose your solicitor in any event.
Trade union funding
Some clients have the benefit of free advice and representation funded by their Trade Union. Trade Unions, like many legal expenses insurers tend limit the number of solicitors authorised to act on their members’ behalf to a limited panel of approved solicitors.Conditional fee agreements
Conditional fee agreements provide a new way of funding a personal injury claim.Under a conditional fee agreement, Lansbury Worthington will not charge you for its services if you do not win your case. This is sometimes referred to as the “no win–no fee” scheme.
If you win your case, then Lansbury Worthington will charge you a supplementary fee over and above our basic costs (explained above), this is called the “success fee”. The success fee is charged as a percentage of Lansbury Worthington’s basic costs (explained above as the hourly expense rate and the uplift combined).
The success fee is subject to a maximum percentage rate of 100% of the basic costs.
If you win your case, you will be entitled to claim from your opponent the following:
- your damages
- your solicitor’s costs assessed on the standard basis plus VAT and disbursements, as explained above
In the event of a successful outcome, you would then be responsible to pay Lansbury Worthington the following:
- our basic costs
- the success fee
- any expenses that we have incurred on your behalf
These costs and expenses will usually be recoverable from your opponent.
If you lose the case then you will only be responsible to pay the following:
- any expenses (called disbursements) that Lansbury Worthington have incurred on your behalf, but not its fees
- your opponent’s legal costs, unless you are insured against this possibility.
Under an agreement between the Law Society and Accident Line Protect it is possible for you to take out a litigation insurance policy against the risk of your having to pay your opponent’s legal costs in the event that your claim is unsuccessful. The insurance provides you with up to £100,000 cover against your opponent’s legal costs.
The cost of the premium is deferred to the end of the case. If you win then usually your opponent will pay this. If you lose then the premium is self-insuring and there is nothing to pay. Additionally, if you lose then the insurance policy will usually pay your disbursements as well.
This firm has an agreement with Accident Line Protect which means that in return for being on the Accident Line Protect panel and being able to issue Accident Line insurance policies, all eligible clients who wish to instruct the firm under a conditional fee agreement must ensure against their opponent’s legal costs, with Accident Line Protect.
Under the Access to Justice Bill litigation insurance premiums and success fees incurred under conditional fee agreements are potentially recoverable from a losing party, in addition to the basic costs and expenses of the litigation. The effect of this will be to allow Lansbury Worthington to act for you on a no win no fee basis and in the event of a successful outcome to recoup the additional costs of doing so from your opponents.
Initial enquiry/fixed fee work
It is sometimes necessary to conduct preliminary investigations before fixing the percentage of the percentage uplift for a success fee. This is because the level of the success fee is governed to a large extent by the litigation risks undertaken by Lansbury Worthington in taking on your claim. Accordingly if there are significant uncertainties present at the time we are initially instructed, it may not be in your interests to enter into a conditional fee agreement immediately (because this is likely to result in a higher percentage uplift).We will tell you if we feel that it is not possible to form an accurate view of the litigation risks right at the outset of a claim. In these circumstances Lansbury Worthington may be able to offer you one of the following temporary fee arrangements.
- Firstly, we could act for you under a fixed fee to carry out certain specific enquiries on your behalf.
- Alternatively, we could enter into a staged conditional fee arrangement, which provides for one or more reviews both as to the merits of proceeding further and the level of the success fee. If the prospects of success improve, then the percentage uplift can be reduced accordingly for work carried out after that date. Conversely, the success fee could increase if the evidence indicates that the prospects of a successful outcome have declined.
- Finally, we could enter into a temporary contingency fee agreement whereby we would charge you our usual private client retainer hourly charge (in other words, our basic costs as explained above), for a limited period, but on terms that we will not actually ask you to pay these charges unless and until you win your case. In other words, you would not face any liability to pay this firm's fees (but not its expenses) for the preliminary work prior to undertaking the conditional fee agreement should you lose your case1. This arrangement may be open to legal challenge by your opponent at the end of the claim.
