Funding A Personal Injury Claim

If you have been injured in an accident caused by someone else it is important to find out if you can make a personal injury claim and how you can pay for a solicitor to help you. It is essential that you take advice from a solicitor who specialises in personal injury claims and who can give you the best advice.

At Nelsons, we have an experienced team of personal injury and clinical negligence lawyers who will guide you through the process from start to finish and advise you on the best way of funding your claim.

Funding your personal injury claim

There are several ways in which you may be able to fund your claim.

1. Private

This would be where you agree to instruct us on a private retainer basis being responsible for our costs, win or lose, and paying us on an hourly basis. You would need to make a payment on account in advance and we would bill you monthly. This is comparable to the situation where you might instruct a Solicitor on a private basis, for example, to purchase property, deal with matrimonial issues, commercial transactions and so on. We appreciate that most people are unlikely to have the funds to do this.

2. Trade Union funding

You may be a member of a Trade Union which might provide legal expenses for advice and representation. This is the first thing you should check.

3. Existing legal expenses insurance

You should check whether you have in place any insurance cover, possibly through a household contents policy or other methods such as credit cards, which might enable you to benefit from legal expenses services or protection.

Sometimes cover is available for a panel solicitor to be instructed by the legal expenses insurers on your behalf to pursue a claim without you having any liability for costs or disbursements. In some instances, your insurer will allow you to use this policy to instruct a solicitor of your choice.

If you do have legal expenses insurance, call your insurer to find out what it covers.

4. No-win, no-fee agreement or Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA)

If we consider that your claim is suitable for a no-win, no-fee agreement and that this is the best option for you, we will explain to you how this works and talk you through the process.

If your claim is unsuccessful

If you enter into a no-win, no-fee agreement with Nelsons and your claim is unsuccessful, you will have nothing to pay if certain conditions are fulfilled. The defendant will bear its own costs and we will bear our costs. To protect you against having to pay for any disbursements such as expenses for obtaining medical records, medical reports and Court fees, we will take out insurance on your behalf. This is called ‘After the Event insurance (ATE) and the insurance policy will pay for the disbursements you incur during the claim. You will not have to pay for this insurance if your claim is unsuccessful.

If your claim is successful

If your claim is successful, then we will recover our costs (or most of them) from the Defendant.  They will also pay for any disbursements you have incurred.  You will have to pay for the cost of the ATE insurance out of your compensation.

You will also pay a success fee to Nelsons to reflect the fact that we have won the claim for you. This is based on a percentage of the costs incurred in running your claim. The percentage is calculated in accordance with the risk involved.

However, this amount is capped at 25% of your compensation – i.e. we will take no more than 25% of your compensation and it could be less.