Whiplash claims
Car Accident Injuries Personal Injury Solicitors Based in Dublin

This is the legal term used to describe how solicitors take on a case where they pay the costs of the litigation on behalf of the client. Solicitors who operate on this basis pay for the medical reports, stamp duty, experts fees and all other legal costs associated with the personal injury case. In the vast majority of cases, clients would not be in a position to fund the cost of litigation and thus it is quite a common practice for specialised personal injury firms to operate on a “no win no fee” basis.

Solicitors in Ireland are regulated by the Law Society of Ireland and it is illegal for them to charge a commission or success fee based on the amount of the compensation awarded. It is important to realise that all your legal costs will not be paid by the insurers and that they will only be liable to pay what is known as a Party/Party contribution towards your legal costs. The balance Solicitor/Client costs owed will have to be paid personally by you.

Put simply if your claim is unsuccessful then the solicitor will charge no fees. However, we must bring to your attention that if your claim is dismissed by a court, the Judge may Order that the Defendant’s costs be paid by you. In practice very few cases get as far as a Court Hearing. The vast majority are settled without going to court or on the morning of the Court Hearing.

If your claim is successful, then the costs for which you will become liable will be outlined to you in detail. It is important to realise that all your legal costs will not be paid by the insurers and that they will only be liable to pay what is known as a Party/Party contribution towards your legal costs. The balance Solicitor/Client costs owed will have to be paid personally by you.

The simple answer is Yes. However, we would advise that you try and sort out any difficulties directly with your Solicitor and only in exceptional circumstances should you consider changing Solicitors. You must remember that if you change Solicitors you will be responsible for their legal costs incurred to date.

Generally all personal injuries claims in Ireland, except Medical Negligence and a few other exceptions have to be sent to the Injuries Board for assessment. The Injuries Board, formerly known as the PIAB was set up some years ago by government to facilitate the whole claims process for people claiming as a result of a Personal Injury suffered in an accident. Before the Injuries Boards were set up there was much divergence between payouts for claims for the same injury and the cost of claims such as legal fees was considered to be too high.

There are many articles in the Irish Times and indeed in other newspapers on the why it was set up and the advantages and disadvantages of the Injuries board process. The Irish Times has lots of articles on the subject. Originally it was set up to make the injury claim easier and cheaper for the claimant to make a claim for compensation.

As your No Win No Fee Personal Injury Solicitor we will explain in detail about the Injuries boards’ publication of the Book of Quantum, which gives approximate values for specific personal injuries. The values do not apply to Medical Negligence injuries. For example a broken arm may be worth a certain figure. However the Book of Quantum is a bench mark for the value of an injury. Of course, it does not take into consideration the circumstances and the trauma of the personal injury or the resulting pain and suffering.

In order to reduce the legal fees and legal costs it was made possible to file with the Injuries Boards without the aid of an Injuries solicitor. All you need is to fill in the assessment form and send it in to the injuries boards with a standard medical report which is filed in by your GP or the medical professional who is treating you. You should also bear in mind that the Statute of Limitations in Ireland is two years from the date of your accident unless you are a minor (under the age of eighteen).

By not needing a personal injury solicitor or no win no fee solicitors to file a claim for compensation it was thought that this would save on legal fees, legal costs and other charges. As well as it would standardise the awards for compensation. However, there are serious flaws in the system of filing a personal injury claim.

1. Without a No Win No Fee Personal injury solicitor to help you complete your injuries board assessment form you risk getting your accident claims rejected for inaccuracies. You will probably only find this out many months after submission. Any inaccuracies in the assessment form, such as the wrong insurance company or the wrong address will have your assessment rejected. This could cause you serious problems with the two year Statute of Limitations if the reply from the Injuries Boards is late.
2. The award from the Injuries board is not binding on you or your third party insurance company. Either you or the Insurance Company can accept or reject the assessment if you think it is too low or the insurance company think it is too high. If after many months you have to resurrect witnesses and the critical evidence of the accident that can be much more difficult. Memories fade and go away and witnesses may be more difficult to find so that a Personal injury Solicitor Dublin on board from the beginning makes perfect sense.

So do not hesitate to get more information from us by calling now for your consultation or fill in the enquiry form (online claim) with your name and telephone number and we will get back to you shortly or at your convenience to fully explain No Win No Fee Solicitors  agreements to you.

The medical profession at all its levels has what is called a “Duty of Care” to their patients. The “Duty of Care” is applicable to Surgeons, Consultants, Doctors, Dentists, Nurses and all the support staff. If you are hurt or injured or have suffered through a lack of “Duty of Care” then your Personal Injury Solicitor may be in a position to take a personal injury claim on No Win No Fee basis for either Medical Negligence or Dental Negligence. Medical or Dental Negligence claims do not go to the Injuries Boards and generally take much longer to come to fruition. They can be costly as well with expert medical opinion being needed to determine whether or not a claim can go ahead. Talk to us now about Medical negligence and Dental Negligence claims.

Your choice of an experienced and skilful personal injury solicitor is very important to your injury claim or medical negligence claim. Most solicitors firms tend to specialise in particular areas of Irish Law. There are specific areas of the law and these cover most of the topics;

• Debt Collection
• Commercial Law
• Litigation
• Property Law
• Employment Law
• Personal Injury Law
• Family Law
• Company Law
• Estate planning

Most solicitors certainly do not have the resources of staff or finance to tick all the boxes above and most law firms will tend concentrate their expertise on one or two or three areas of Irish Law. So in choosing your personal injury lawyer you need to take one that specialises mainly, if not entirely in Personal injury law. Choose a No Win No Fee solicitor whom you like and a law firm that has good communications and equally good financial resources.

A claim for personal injury with a solicitors firm that does only employment law or any other area of the Law is not the right choice! So do not hesitate to get more information from us by calling now for your consultation or fill in the enquiry form (online claim) with your name and telephone number and we will get back to you shortly or at your convenience to fully explain No Win No Fee agreements and your choice of Personal Injury Solicitors to you.

Personal Injury Solicitors only offer No Win No Fee agreements to their clients when they have a good certainty that they are going to win the case and therefore earn their fees and costs. If they lose then they risk having to write off the time and costs involved in the case. Often cases for personal injury can look at the very beginning to be definitely winnable and therefore fee earning however when you get into the detail and sometime after you have signed up the client to a No Win No Fee agreement your opinion may start to change as you get into the personal injury claim. The sudden thought and real possibility of may be of having to take a loss on the Personal Injury claim can be very motivating to some.

How do some Personal Injury solicitors wriggle out of a No Win No Fee agreement? A No Win No Fee agreement does not just say “If you and we win you pay our fees and costs, but if you and we lose you do not have to pay us anything at all”. Any No Win No Fee agreement is full of clauses about where the responsibility lays for the management the claim in question. There will be certain things that you will be responsible for and certain things your personal Injury Solicitor is responsible for. As the agreement has been drawn up by your solicitor then you can imagine who gets them protected the most! As it is said over and over again “The Devil is in the Details”

How do you avoid trouble with your solicitor over a No Win No Fee agreement? Simply you have to be doubly careful over the detailed clauses in the No Win No Fee agreement and where you can make sure that you eliminate as many as possible in negotiations with your Personal Injury solicitor. Where they cannot be taken out then be very careful as to not to give the solicitor the slightest possibility of getting out of a No Win No Fee agreement.

Be careful as well if you are unfortunate to lose your Personal injury claims then although you will not be paying your brief’s costs and fees you may be paying the third parties legal fees and costs. Ask your Personal Injury solicitor to arrange an insurance policy to cover this possibility. So do not hesitate to get more information from us by calling now for your consultation without obligation or fill in the enquiry form (online claim) with your name and telephone number and we will get back to you shortly or at your convenience to fully explain No Win No Fee agreements and your choice of Personal Injury Solicitors.

As explained above all solicitors in Ireland are regulated by Law Society of Ireland. You will find that in many parts of the world, notably in North America (USA and Canada) that Legal Fees or other charges can be calculated by a solicitors/lawyers firm as an exact portion or percentage of any award and indeed the percentage or portion can be pretty high. However in Ireland this is strictly not allowed.

The Law Society of Ireland insists that the following statement is included on all solicitor’s documentation, paper work, brochures and websites “In contentious business a solicitor may not calculate fees or other charges as a percentage or proportion of any award or settlement.”

This means that the fee basis is calculated around the time given to you by the No Win No Fee Personal Injury solicitor, which will be by category of person involved from the legal practice. Of course, a partner in a legal team of a fee solicitor will cost more than a secretary.
Our personal injury solicitors will be more than happy to answer any question you have so give us a call and we will explain the process to you.

So do not hesitate to get more information from us by calling now for your consultation without obligation or fill in the enquiry form (online claim) with your name and telephone number and we will get back to you shortly or at your convenience to fully explain No Win No Fee Solicitors agreements and your choice of Personal Injury Solicitors.