Disputes – advice funding
A client guide to financing your legal work
Pay as you go
Please ask us for details about paying on the traditional “private” basis. We have a range of different charging rates, according to the level of experience you require. We will always aim to give you an idea of likely costs. With disputes, this can often depend on how the other party behaves. We can therefore either offer a fixed fee for a specified piece of work, or you can set a costs limit and we shall do as much work as we can up to that.
Fixed fee interviews
An hour appointment is available for £100+VAT. In all cases payment must be made on the day of the interview by cash or cheque.
The reason we offer this service is:
- For you to explain your concerns to a lawyer.
- For a lawyer to ask you relevant questions to advise whether you need to take any urgent action.
- To assess whether it would be worthwhile for you to instruct a lawyer.
- To explain to you what future costs might be involved.
- To explain what services we are able to offer and the fee structure that would apply.
- For you to decide if you wish to instruct this firm and also for you to decide whether we can represent you.
- Of course, you are under no obligation to engage this firm.
For Personal Injury work, we offer a free first interview.
Legal Expenses Insurance may already be in force
Many of our clients already have the benefit of legal expenses insurance. Most motor policies include legal expenses insurance, as do some buildings, home contents and holiday policies, and even credit cards and some bank accounts.
If you believe that you have any kind of legal insurance, please tell us and we can contact your legal insurer to determine if they will be prepared to meet the legal costs for your claim.
Sometimes insurers will tell you to use their own nominated lawyer. This may not be convenient for you, nor provide the level of service you would like. If you talk to us about it, we can usually make arrangements with the insurers so that we may act on your behalf.
Alternatively, insurance can sometimes be taken out even at this stage to cover your legal costs and/or those of the opponent. Please ask us about these possibilities.
Assistance from Trade Unions, Trade Organisations or other Associations
If you are a member of any of these, or similar bodies, you may be eligible for financial assistance with your claim. If this is the case, please discuss it with us and provide the details. We will probably be able to act on your behalf as your nominated solicitor.
Conditional Fee Agreement (“no win, no fee”)
We may be able to assist with your claim on the basis of a conditional fee agreement. This is known popularly as a “no win no fee” scheme. The idea is that, by making the claim, you do not risk being financially worse off than you were before, whatever the result. If you lose, you pay us nothing, and if you win your opponent pays towards your costs. We will provide you with a conditional fee agreement which sets out all the terms of the agreement between us. It will include details of any arrangement for funding of disbursements, the details of the success fee payable and details of your conditional fee insurance. We are always happy to discuss the terms of the conditional fee agreement with you.
Conditional Fee Insurance
If you lose your case, even using a Conditional Fee Agreement, there is a risk that you would have to pay your opponent’s legal costs and your own disbursements. For this reason the popular term “no win no fee” can be somewhat misleading.
We do aim to avoid that risk for you by advising and arranging that you take out “conditional fee insurance”. The insurer would then pay your opponent’s costs and disbursements; it would also pay your own disbursements if you lost the case. “Disbursements” are payments to other people to help your claim.
If you would like to be considered for a conditional fee agreement then we will happily arrange for a risk assessment. The success fee will also be assessed.
Conditional Fee Agreements are not available for Employment work, but a similar form of “No win, No fee” funding may be used. For more information please see our Employment Funding leaflet.
Legal Aid
It may be possible that you qualify for public funding. If you are in receipt of Income Support, Income-Based Jobseekers Allowance or Guaranteed State Pension Credit then you will qualify for the basic level of public funding. This is called “Legal Help”. If you were not in receipt of any of these benefits, then we would be happy to carry out a full assessment before you instruct us to see if you qualify for Legal Help.
Under Legal Help we would be able to meet with you and advise you. We may then be able to enter into correspondence with a third party on your behalf in order to assist you in your dispute. Legal Help will only allow us to attend Court on your behalf in exceptional circumstances and then only for a one-off hearing. It does not allow us to represent you fully in Court or Tribunal proceedings; however, depending on your circumstances and the matter in dispute, you may be eligible for full certificate public funding, more commonly known as Legal Aid.
What Thomas Dunton can do for you
We have a team of specialist dispute resolution lawyers who take pride in giving straightforward legal advice to their clients.
We will do our best to advise you and to ensure that everything proceeds in your case as smoothly as possible. Do not at any time be afraid to ask questions. We will give you the clearest information possible about costs and keep you updated about the issues as the matter progresses.
