Funding Your Medical Negligence Case

No Win No Fee Agreement & Alternative Ways of Funding

Clinical negligence claims are most commonly funded by No Win No Fee Agreement.

However, alternative methods of funding are available and will need to be considered before a no win no fee agreement is offered. These include Legal Expenses Insurance which may form part of an already exiting policy of insurance held by you (such as Home Insurance), or Legal Aid which is a public form of funding available only to a limited number of case types.

What is No Win No Fee?

No win, no fee, more formally known as a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA), is a legal arrangement used in most medical and clinical negligence cases. It allows individuals like you to pursue their claim without upfront costs.

The no win no fee arrangement enables easier access to justice for those affected by medical negligence.

If you win your claim

If you win your claim, you will receive damages, compensating you for three heads of loss: (1) Your pain, suffering and loss of amenity, (2) Your past financial losses arising as a result of the negligence, and (3) Your future financial losses which will likely be encountered because of the negligence.

We will recover our basic charges (our costs), VAT and our disbursements (such as expert fees & court fees) from the Defendant.

You will be required to pay our success fee from the damages you have received. The success fee reflects the level of risk to our firm by taking on your case and could be anything between 0 – 100%. However, the success fee is capped at 25% of the compensation you recover for the first two heads of loss only (1) & (2) above. It does not apply to the compensation you are awarded for the third head of loss, (3) your Future Financial Losses.

In some circumstances you may be asked to pay a costs shortfall, which is to reflect that not all of the costs incurred in pursuing your claim will be recoverable. If a costs shortfall is to be applied we will discuss it with you before any settlement is agreed.

In addition, you will be required to pay part of the After The Event (ATE) Insurance premium, which is a policy of insurance we take out to protect you against adverse costs liabilities which might arise in your case. It is this policy of insurance which makes the arrangement “no win no fee”. The part of the premium you pay is called the ‘non-recoverable’ element and varies depending upon the amount of damages agreed. Full details of the premium payable will be shared with you at the time of incepting a policy of insurance in your case.

If you lose your claim

If you lose your claim, you will not receive any compensation and we will not get paid for our work.

Whilst you would remain liable for our disbursements incurred, you will be insured against these costs by taking out an After The Event (ATE) policy of Insurance. The ATE insurer will therefore pay the disbursements incurred in your case. The ATE insurance provider will not charge their premium in unsuccessful cases to ensure that the agreement is no win no fee.

At Patient Lawyer we are very transparent about our fees and we live by the principle that there should be “no surprises”. We therefore ensure that you are fully informed of your costs liability before any settlement is agreed, so that you know exactly what amount of compensation you will walk away with when the claim is resolved.