Up till the late 90's Legal Aid was available for personal injury claims. In case you had had an accident you were able to go to a lawyer and they would claim their charges and expenditures through obtaining Legal aid. The claimant would end up paying nothing or very little fees. Because of the amount of cases for personal injuries the government abandoned this and withdrew its funding. It was replaced with conditional fees agreements or "no win no fee" agreements which is putting the risk on the lawyer.
Currently solicitors will work for free under the arrangement that if they don't win the case they will not get paid. This makes lawyers merely take on cases they recognize they have got a reliable likelihood of winning. None of the winning compensation goes to your solicitor, the whole compensation goes to the victim and the solicitor takes his costs and expenses from the insurance company from the losing party.
A no win, no fee compensation claim is essentially self explanatory, in how the client isn't liable to pay their lawyer fees if the case isn't won. In the same way, in the event the case is successful, you'll get to keep every penny of the compensation you are awarded; the losing group shall be responsible for the legal costs, and your lawyers will also retrieve their 'success fee' from the other side.
Often, clients will pay an insurance charge whilst pursuing a no win, no fee claim, since though they would not be accountable for their own solicitors costs if they wind up losing the case, they would still need to pay the complete legal charges associated with the opposing side. Again, if your case is successful, this premium insurance cost will also be covered from the other side. This is the reason countless companies will reassure their clients that not a penny from the money they're awarded will be consumed in legal costs, as this is something which puts lots of people off from making a claim.
Owing to the growing number of companies which are able to offer their clients a no win, no fee compensation claim, it's always worthy to shop around rather than deciding on a certain firm. There may be a tiny amount of background research you will be able to do, for example looking around their site, reading testimonials from previous customers, as well as getting a feel for the organisation. For those in any doubt, a good firm is not going to hesitate to put you in touch with one of their prior customers to confirm their legitimacy.
Companies that provide a no win, no fee claim agreement might usually also provide free, confidential initial consultations, whereby they'll assess your case and find out whether or not they would go ahead with it. This initial meeting should also be an opportunity for the client to get a feel for the company - if your gut feelings tell you that something isn't quite right about them, you're under no commitment to remain working with them afterwards.
Another way to measure the reputation of a firm is to check out their level of practice, their preceding victory rate, along with how many specialist lawyers they have working for them. If a company has 1 lawyer who handles everything from whiplash injuries to fatal accidents, they are most likely not going to be as skillful as a firm who has many lawyers in the midst of different areas of expertise.
People must still be aware when approached by personal injury firms, seeing that there are still many companies who incorporate big unknown expenses and charges for things like risk assessments, and extreme insurance premiums - it can be well worth doing the extra examination on a firm to prevent being saddled with massive legal charges which were not made clear to you at the start.