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. We will take out the necessary insurance on your behalf to cover this risk.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; 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:
Conditional fee agreements
This the most common 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
“disbursements”
These are expenses incurred on your behalf by Lansbury Worthington in order to progress your claim, such as court fees and consultancy fees. They are usually recoverable from your opponent in the event of a successful outcome to your claim.In a typical personal injury claim you might expect to incur the following disbursements:
- Police Accident Report fee £80.00
- Administration fees in obtaining access to your medical records of up to £100.00
- Medical Report fee of about £500.00
- Possibly a court fee if it becomes necessary to issue proceedings:
- this depends on the value of your claim. £120.00 - £500.00
- Possibly also counsel’s fees, inclusive of VAT £500.00
We shall endeavour to identify the likely level of expenditure at our first meeting.
We would expect to recover all the disbursements that we will incur on your behalf from the opponent in the event of a successful outcome of the claim. Should your claim fail, the Accident Line Insurance Policy will reimburse you these expenses.
We would normally pay these expenses and disbursements as the case proceeds and then recover these for you if your claim is successful. If your claim is not successful then the Accident Line insurance policy will usually pay the cost of these expenses.
The traditional private client retainer
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.
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.
In this type of funding the client takes all the risk of the case losing and of paying the other side’s costs.
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).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 expensesLansbury 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.
