I wouldn't claim to be an expert. Purely because I am a Retired, former, Solicitor. And specialised in areas other than Personal Injury. But, even so, I've acted in a fair few PI cases in the past.
My take on this is the following:-
1. The best bit of advice on here is to check whether you have what is known as "BTE" (Before the Event) Legal Expenses Insurance. Literally millions of people have this without realising, often as an add-on to house insurance or membership of a Union/Staff Association. And, partly because loads of people forget it, it is really cheap in comparison to ATE Insurance.
2. In order to receive a possible uplift in his fees, the Solicitors are not charging you in relation to their fees. But there are a lot of other fees from other people-from Court Costs to Expert Witnesses to the other sides' fees
3. Solicitors are struggling to make any money from Personal Injury work. The majority of Firms no longer deal with PI. Lots of Rules have changed, and Court cases cost way more, and take far longer, than they used to. Not least because this Government has closed half the Courts and now charges "commercial" levels of fees
4. You do not have a 99% chance of winning. No-one does. Show me a Solicitor who says he has never lost a case he felt certain to win, and I will show you a liar (or someone who has little experience). It is a lot like AA v 32-it happens. Cases sometimes get worse over time. Defendants go bust. A Judge decides to ignore the evidence.
5. Not only that, there is the fun of "Part 36" offers. Suppose your case is thought to be worth say roughly 10k. Now if you receive a Part 36 offer of 7.5k, what are you going to do? Because if you refuse it, and do not end up with more, you have to pay the other sides' costs from the date of the offer. Sure you are not going to get better sooner than predicted? That there will be no Contributory Negligence? Willing to gamble (say) £20,000 for that extra £2,500?
5. Suppose your Solicitors normally charge £200 per hour. Also suppose that they will work for 100 hours on your case. They are risking £20,000 of their money, and probably waiting an average of 2 years to get their money back. Now suppose that Paralegal has 100 cases, with yours as an average. That is £2 million in fees that person's firm are paying up-front. For which their Bank will be charging them rather more than £560 a pop. They are sufficiently confident of winning that they will forego their fees under various circumstances. Just not other people's.
The ATE (After the Event) premium of £560? No idea if that is a typical figure. But it is primarily for your benefit. Not the Solicitors.
Hope that helps. Best of luck
That is exactly what I was hoping for when I posted yesterday as I felt sure I was probably missing a few things.
Thank you so much for taking the trouble to explain everything in such detail.
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