It’s a long story, and I’m not without blame but I’d like to investigate where I might go with a component failure that caused me an accident and serious injury. I’m not in it for cash (despite being self employed and unable to work for three months). I expect the answer will be that this goes nowhere but I’d like to ask the question. Anyone had experience of a similar case?

Thanks

Rich

No win/no fee lawyers try and take on cases where they are virtually certain there will be a payout. You might as well just try a few and if they all reject your case that will tell you something. You should check that by giving them info on your case they aren’t then “hired” by you.

Find a proper PI lawyer who will review the case and can use a no win/no fee contract. They will review the case and suggest what chance you have

You may be better of finding a lawyer who deals in products liability.

The one I used was OK but the medical ‘expert’ they used was pathetic – making up injuries to maximise the compensation, etc.

I then had a lot of toing and froing to try and get him to be more truthful, but gave up in the end as it was close enough, although he refused to put the actual injury I was complaining about.

Legal funding changed in April – recoverability of success fees (i.e how the lawyer funded the no win/no fee thing) went out of the window, so I suspect you may struggle to find someone that’ll take it on (without knowing the particulars of your case).

The new thing is ‘damages based agreements’ which allows the lawyer to take part of any damages you recover. As I understand it though there’s not much pickup as they’re too complicated!

I deal with CFAs every day (conditional fee agreements) but have yet to see a DBA in the wild.

Also remember if you die before it is all sorted, your family will be responsible for legal charges to date.

Hope you have many happy years left though.

All lawyers like cases it is how they get paid . most will chat to you on the phone or in person to see if you would be wasting each others time . find a local big firm doing pi give them a ring ask to speak to a solicitor to see if it is worth taking on your case. The no win no fee adverts tend to be claims handler middlemen who know nothing and do nothing in exchange for a cut of your damages . Any solicitor who does the work will be able to offer a way of funding it if you have a runner of a claim.

if you die before it is all sorted, your family will be responsible for legal charges to date

Unless this is a special case I’m not aware of, debts are generally not transferable to others after death. When you die your debts are paid for in order, 1) secured loans (eg, mortgage), 2) funeral costs, 3) everything else. If the money’s run out before you get to 3), too bad.

If this isn’t the case for legal proceedings I’d be interested to know.

Cougar – Moderator

If this isn’t the case for legal proceedings I’d be interested to know.

It’s cobblers.

Thank you all, that’s helpful. I am going to try and find a local firm that I can talk to and see if they’re interested. Not much local to where I am in N Wales, but I will have a dig around.

Cougar – Moderator

if you die before it is all sorted, your family will be responsible for legal charges to date

Unless this is a special case I’m not aware of, debts are generally not transferable to others after death. When you die your debts are paid for in order, 1) secured loans (eg, mortgage), 2) funeral costs, 3) everything else. If the money’s run out before you get to 3), too bad.

If this isn’t the case for legal proceedings I’d be interested to know

it was a claim of medical incompetence against a failed health care providor, after a resident was seriously neglected, and injured and recieved no medical treatment for 2 days.

Sadly the patient died before the case was sorted, and we had to pay legal costs to date, and then clainm them back when we won the case.

We won the case, eventually,but my dad never lived to say thank you to the people who fought for him.

Very interesting (and directly relevant to me right now), thank you.

So the answer is your family are not responsible for your debts on death your estate is . So if nothing in the estate nothing to pay. If the estate includes an out standing civil claim and the executors want to continue it then continuing that action will need to be funded .

Yes , we had to pay off the solicitors, then make a new claim in our names absolutely nothing changed only my dads death, and a large amount of money handed over.

Is there any way of finding out the success rate of no win no fee solicitors? How do you go about choosing one?

cinnamon_girl – Member
Is there any way of finding out the success rate of no win no fee solicitors? How do you go about choosing one?

Well, there’s no specific objective ‘league tables’ for lawyers, but there are two industry commentaries – Chambers & Partners, and Legal 500. Both are heavily involved with the firms, though – they all get the chance to comment, and IIRC have to pay to be included.

One more cynical option is to check the SRA website to see if anyone at the firm has been censured – if they have, avoid!

Depending on exactly what you’re looking to do, you might be able to find press reports on leading firms in certain areas – equal pay claims for women, for example.

Probably the best way is simply word of mouth recommendations, but ultimately even then you could end up with a good lawyer on a bad day.

Basically if they answer the phone quickly, give you retainer and funding information in writing up front, and you’ve checked they’re properly regulated by the SRA (and therefore have the requisite insurance), from then on in treat it like any other consumer experience – if you’re not happy, shout. After all, you’re (possibly) paying (there are circumstances where even under no win no fee agreements you end up liable for their fees).

Finally, (or rather, firstly!) check your home insurance policy to see whether you have legal expenses cover. A lot of policies cover a very wide range of claims, and will fund the bringing of claims as well as defending them. You can also insist on using your preferred lawyer if their panel firm doesn’t seem up to snuff, though you may be limited to panel rates.

Jakester – that’s most helpful. thank you. 🙂

I should probably say,

I’m in the middle of a claim at the moment. Using TPF Law, I can give you contact details if required. I’ve nothing to compare them to, but I can’t fault them so far.

The new Chambers is out today *runs off to update her LinkedIn profile with this year’s quotes*

There’s a bit of law firm self-promotion involved – you have to put together a submission which includes the sexiest sounding stuff if you can think of even if it was far less complex than the submission might make it appear. They do speak to clients – but only the ones who you give them contact details for, so for some reason negative stuff rarely finds its way to the researchers :wink:. They also do interviews with each firm to try to get them to dish the dirt on their competitors. I’m not sure whether you actually pay (I know that once you get a ranking they try to flog you plaques certificates and other stuff to put in reception etc but we never buy ours) because I don’t get involved in that side of the submission process.

Anyway, that was a bit of an aside.

For no win no fee stuff I’m not sure there’s any way of assessing overall success rates. I’d also be a little wary of some of the complaints stats that get published. Our compliance department used to whinge regularly that the stats gave no context – e.g. a sole practitioner with 3 complaints is much, much worse than a large firm with 10. I’m not sure if that has changed as they I haven’t heard them kick off about it so much recently. Or maybe I just avoid getting into conversation with them.

cinnamon_girl – Member
Jakester – that’s most helpful. thank you.

Pleasure.

hjghg5 – Member
The new Chambers is out today *runs off to update her LinkedIn profile with this year’s quotes*

*sob* I’m not important enough to feature in my firm’s.

However, when I compare the commentary with the actual reality in our teams, they bear very little resemblance! I would be shocked if some of the people they say can do stuff would actually be able to pull it off.