Walker Jack Consultants

One of the newest ways for legal fees to be paid is through no win no fee agreements, or conditional fee agreements. Under this type of payment schedule, legal fees are waived until the case is heard. If the case is successful, the person filing the case pays the required fees. If the case is unsuccessful, then the fees are not paid. In other words, paying any legal fees is conditional on the outcome of the case.

Most commonly, no win no fee lawyers work within the fields of personal injuries or employment complaints. Personal injury claims can include car accident claims, medical negligence and any other accident or injury that is due to another person. Non win no fee employment solicitors usually represent those who have been let go without reason or harassed in the workplace.

Whether due to injury or lack of work, it is likely that the people that file these cases may not have the resources to pay for legal help up front. In the past, they would have had to seek assistance from legal aid, which often took time for their cases to be assessed. To take the burden from legal aid, no win no fee claims were introduced, which allowed individual solicitors and lawyers to evaluate the relevance of each case.

While this payment agreement seems like a win-win situation, there are some disadvantages. Solicitors may not take cases if the compensation amount is not deemed large enough. Also, some lawyers and solicitors have been known to charge an unfair percentage of the claim amount to cover their fees. This is not always the case, but it is important for anyone undertaking a no win no fee agreement to understand exactly what compensation they can expect and what fees they will have to pay prior to starting the case.

read comments (0)

Although not often advertised or publicised there are some special compensation schemes available.

For example if you contracted HIV while being treated for Haemophilia, you can make a personal injury claim via the MacFarlane Trust. This particular organisation was set up to give financial support to individuals, families and dependants suffering from the effects of HIV infection. This could have resulted from blood transfusions, and or other treatments.

Quoting directly from their site: “The Trust’s brief includes the assistance of its members both financially and in other ways. Within the exclusive members’ pages of this site, the sections dealing with financial help from the Trust and with welfare benefits are especially important since they are intended to show all the income that can be received from these sources.”

The government also has a little known scheme for people who have suffered damage or problems resulting from a vaccination. Claims can be made from the Vaccine Damage Payment Unit.

Other government schemes are also available for a wide range of health related problems. For instance, if you suffered damage from working with asbestos you could make an industrial injury claim and receive disablement benefit.

Incidentally, personal injury claims are not just confined to those directly affected by work related injuries. A wife for instance could also make a claim if she contracted an asbestos related disease simply through washing her husband’s clothes.  Generally though, secondary claims are usually one-off payments.

There are also statutory time limits for any special compensation payments.

read comments (0)

Back pain is one of the main reasons for UK citizens taking time off work. Although there may be many reasons why people suffer from back pain, research shows that a major contributing factor is an injury sustained in the workplace.

It is not only employees who work in the so-called ‘heavy industries’, for example, construction workers, assembly line operatives, but also secretaries and typists, nurses, paramedics and care workers. In all of these professions, a personal injury ’no win, no fee’ claim for compensation has been successfully pursued.

Different professions naturally require different skills, but a typist will often suffer from back pain due to a number of causes. It may be that the chair used is old and unstable, the table positioned at an awkward height – even the fact that regular breaks are frowned upon in the office.

While these things may sound inconsequential, the fact is that after a period of time these factors will all contribute towards a back injury.

If you feel this is the case, then get in touch with a ‘no win, no fee’ personal injury claim solicitor. The solicitor will offer no win, no fee legal advice and pursue your claim in court.

Should your case end up an unsuccessful one, you won’t have lost a penny. If you are awarded compensation then you can rest assured that all of the compensation is yours – the solicitor will collect his fee from the negligent party’s insurance policy leaving you with financial security.

read comments (0)

Personal injury law is a specialised field of the legal system that enables those injured as a result of another to file claims for the harm they have suffered. Most solicitors that work within the personal injury law area deal with cases that involve accidents. When the word accident is used, many people think of car accidents, but in personal injury law, accidents can include slip and trip cases, medical negligence, accidents in the work place and any other situation where an individual has been harmed, as well as road accidents.

There are many reasons to hire a personal injury solicitor if you or a loved one has been injured. One of the key benefits is that these solicitors are specialists in the personal injury law field. They will have taken the time to increase their knowledge of this particular type of law and the cases that are filed. Even within the field of personal injuries, some solicitors specialise even further and only handle particular cases. For instance, some solicitors may work on road accident cases only while others may deal with those involving the workplace.

By specialising in a particular field, solicitors not only gain knowledge of that field, but they will be that more experienced in handling those types of cases. Usually, with greater experience comes a better chance of success, particularly when compared to general law solicitors. Personal injury solicitors will have a much better understanding of what makes a successful case, how to build that case and the amount of compensation that could be won. By choosing a solicitor that handles these cases on a regular basis, you will be increasing your chances of success.

read comments (0)

Lower body injuries are a common source of personal no win no fee injury claims. Whether you have fallen over as the result of inadequately paved streets or are the unfortunate victim of a car accident, any injury that affects your mobility could result in a significant amount of compensation, particularly if it necessitates prolonged treatment and a lengthy time off work.

For example, knee injuries have a particularly long recovery period. For some sufferers, simply resting or visits to a physiotherapist will be sufficient, while for others surgery will be required.

Groin injuries are another source of intense discomfort and protracted immobility. Hernias are a frequent problem and are often caused by repetitive strain as a result of lifting in the workplace. It is not uncommon for hernias to develop after a length of time, meaning that the sufferer is not initially aware of the damage.

Employers are bound to provide a high standard of health and safety at work. If your injury was the result of an accident at work then you may well have grounds for a personal injury claim.

A no win no fee agreement is the ideal way to pursue such a claim for compensation.

Because you are unlikely to receive legal aid, no win no fee claims allow the victim to seek compensation without putting a large amount of money in a solicitor’s hands, up front.

Instead, you are not obliged to pay the solicitor anything except, in some cases, expenses, if you lose your claim.

read comments (0)

Making a personal injury claim does not necessarily need a lawyer. It is also feasible for you to use a professional claims assessor.

Claims assessors, also known as claims managers, are authorised by the government to carry out the business of assessing whether a claim has merit or not. As they are in business for themselves in the same way as solicitors, they will more often than not take up a case on a no win no fee basis.

As claims assessors are government regulated they do need to adhere to strict rules of professional practice.  However there are a couple of downsides to using a claims assessing service. Firstly, they are not generally solicitors, nor will they usually have access to a solicitor who would oversee or take charge of the case.  Secondly, while they will work on a no win no fee compensation basis they invariably will expect a fee if they win the case. This will normally be a percentage of the compensation they win on your behalf, and could be as much as 50%. When using a no win no fee solicitor their costs would have been claimed from the other side before you are awarded any compensation.  If you are prepared to accept this difference, it is likely that they will fight for greater compensation. It is after all in their interests to do so.

Before deciding to use a claims assessing company it is advisable that you seek advice from the Citizens Advice Bureau.

read comments (0)

In the UK if anyone is injured in a car accident and it wasn’t their fault, they have the right to claim compensation based on their injuries. When a car accident claim is filed, it will be filed against the driver that caused the accident. Because drivers must be insured in the UK, the claim is actually against the driver’s insurance company.

Even though it is the law that drivers are insured in the UK, there is a significant number who are not. So, what happens when a person is injured by an uninsured driver? If the driver is uninsured, will a claim be paid?  Luckily, the Motor Insurers Bureau was set up in 1946 to deal with accidents that involved uninsured or untraced, hit and run, drivers. This is a privately run organisation that provides compensation under three different schemes. The uninsured driver’s scheme is for any compensation claims against such drivers. It will consider compensation claims that can include repair or replacement of a vehicle, medical and treatment expenses, hire car expenses and pain and suffering due to injuries. The untraced drivers scheme deals with compensation claims from victims of hit and run drivers. The final scheme, the green card scheme, provides compensation if the accident is caused by a foreign driver.

While victims may be able to claim compensation from the Motor Insurers Bureau, there are strict regulations for filing the claims and for what can and will be paid. In these cases, it is still worth seeking the assistance of an accident claims solicitor to ensure that all regulations are met when filing the compensation claim.

read comments (0)

Groin injury occurs when the muscles of the groin area are stretched beyond their limits, thereby causing the muscles and surrounding tissue to tear. Groin injuries can be as simple as a pulled muscle or sprained tendon, or can be something more serious like a hernia, which is when an abdominal injury occurs, pressing into the tissue or muscle surrounding it and causing significant pain. Groin injuries are fairly common personal injuries that are often covered under the no win no fee system, depending on how they occurred. Most groin injuries occur as a direct result of individuals placing an unusually large amount of strain or pressure on a region, mostly related to intense physical activity. Heavy lifting on the job is one of the leading causes of groin and stomach injuries.

Since your employer owes you a duty of care and is required by law to provide reasonable measures of safety, you are entitled to no win no fee compensation as long as you can prove your employer was in some way negligent and caused you to injure yourself. Whether or not you are allowed to make a groin injury claim depends on the circumstances leading up to the injury, as well as the severity. Considering all personal injury claims are taken very seriously under the no win no fee system, your best course of action is to contact a no win no fee lawyer and find out whether or not you are eligible to make a no win no fee compensation claim.

read comments (0)

In general, making a personal injury claim in Scotland is similar to that in England and Wales. However there are some differences.

For instance, someone making a claim is called the Pursuer while the person or organisation being claimed against is known as the Defender. Also, any action that goes to court will take place in the Sheriff’s Court or in the Court of Sessions in Edinburgh. The latter is only used if the case is complex and requires the use of barristers; they are called advocates in Scotland.

One other crucial difference is that in Scotland, investigations into the case can be continued after it has gone to court. In England and Wales, the case must be court ready before proceeding. No further investigation is allowed.

The no win no fees basis of taking a case is more complex in Scotland than south of the border. The reason for this is the no win no fee arrangement is a private one.

Unlike in England and Wales legal aid is available for personal injury claims but only if the pursuer qualifies. If not, then another avenue must be sought. Thus, if funds are not available for a pursuer to make a claim, then it is likely they will have to take out some form of legal expenses insurance.

While the terms and process used in Scotland may be different, what can be claimed for is essentially the same.

read comments (0)

Under the no win no pay system, you are allowed to make a compensation claim without paying any sort of legal fees up front. Instead, your no win no fee lawyer will claim the legal fees from the other side, meaning that win or lose the insurer of the defendant is required by law to compensate you 100% for any of the legal fees involved. If you win, all of the associated fees above and beyond the legal ones, such as medical fees, wages lost, and compensation for pain and suffering are covered. The system was initially put into place in order to provide access to justice for individuals who were otherwise financially unable to pursue claims.

The first step in making compensation claim if you believe that someone is liable for your injury is for you to contact a no win no fee solicitor. If the solicitor agrees that you have a valid claim and that someone else could in fact be liable, they will take your information and send it to the individual thought to be liable for your injury and inform them that you intend to file a claim against them. At this point, you will need to be examined by medical experts to determine whether or not the injury you have was actually a result of the negligent actions of the other party, and a schedule of losses will be drawn up, which will then be presented to the defendant’s lawyer for them to either accept or dispute, in which case the claim goes to court and the outcome is determined by a judge.

read comments (0)