Tel: 0161 720 6700   Email: info@brianbarr.co.uk

Funding Your Litigation

It is your right to instruct the Solicitor of your choice. Funding is not nearly such a problem as you may imagine. The main options are set out below:

LEGAL EXPENSES INSURANCE

If you have legal expenses insurance then provided you comply with the terms of your policy you can conduct your litigation without having to worry about legal costs.

However, often your insurers will indicate to you that if you wish to enjoy the benefits of your insurance you will have to use one of their panel Solicitors. There are two important exceptions to this rule:

  1. Under Regulation 6(1) of the Insurance Companies (Legal Expenses Insurance) Regulations 1990, if court proceedings have been issued you are entitled to insist that the Solicitor of your choice act for you under your insurance policy. If you are unsure whether proceedings have been issued in your case just ask your current solicitor

  2. Yours may well be the type of case where you are entitled to have the Solicitor of your choice even where proceedings have not been issued. The March 2003 edition of Ombudsman News (Issue 26) indicates the Ombudsman’s view that in complex cases the insurer should agree to the appointment of the policyholder’s preferred Solicitor at any stage of the litigation. Fibromyalgia/ME/Chronic Pain type cases are by their very nature complex and we may be able to convince your insurer to allow us to act for you even before proceedings have been issued.

“NO WIN NO FEE” AGREEMENT

If you have no suitable legal expenses insurance we may be able to act for you under a Conditional Fee (“no win no fee”) Agreement (CFA). The main points to note about a CFA are as follows:

  1. You only pay us if you win your claim (“win” being defined by the conditions of the Agreement). You would not, provided you kept to the terms of the Agreement, pay a fee if you lost the claim.

  2. If the claim did not succeed, you would still potentially be responsible for:
    > The cost of medical reports or other outlays incurred by our firm on your behalf.
    > The costs of your opponent. However, you only become responsible for the costs of the opponent once proceedings are issued.
    A special type of insurance can be taken out to protect you in respect of these matters and this is something we can discuss with you should it be relevant.

  3. If the claim did succeed the costs will be paid by your opponent.

IF YOUR INSURER REFUSES TO ALLOW YOU TO TRANSFER YOUR CASE TO OUR FIRM

If you have suitable Legal Expenses Insurance but your insurer refuses to allow you to transfer your case (before proceedings are issued), there may be circumstances where it would be reasonable for you to reject your insurance and enter into a CFA with us on account of our specialist knowledge.

In these circumstances we would act under a CFA until proceedings had been issued at which point we could look to act for you under the terms of your insurance policy or carry on acting under the CFA.

However, a decision to reject existing legal expenses insurance in favour of a CFA is not a decision which should be taken lightly and only after careful consideration with us of the advantages and disadvantages of this course of action. In the first instance we would generally press your insurer to allow us to act for you under your insurance policy.

OTHER FUNDING

These might include paying privately, being funded by your Union or applying for public funding. Public funding is only available for accident claims in very rare circumstances.

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