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The Cost of Claiming
Our Fees Employee Law Centre will not charge you anything. We refer your case to a qualified solicitor and that solicitor will pay us a referral fee for sending them the case. Solicitor Costs Your claim will incur legal costs that will have to be paid, however, the choice of funding method is entirely yours. There usually are three options open to you;
1. No Win No Fee method The solicitor will act for you and carry out all necessary work on your behalf right through to settlement of your claim. If your case is lost, you do not pay anything at all and the solicitor does not earn anything. If your case is won, the solicitor will charge a fee and this fee is deducted from your settlement. This is usually around 20% or 25% of your settlement and would be agreed with you at the beginning of your claim when the solicitor will ask you to complete a No Win No Fee Agreement. 2. Legal Expenses Insurance cover Many people have the benefit of Legal Expenses Insurance. This may be a part of your household insurance policy, car insurance cover or credit card benefits. It is wise to check the terms to see if you have cover. If so, the solicitor will obtain agreement from the insurer so that the solicitor can forward their bill to them. You would therefore receive all of your compensation and pay nothing at all, win or lose. Many of these insurance policies cover up to £50,000 of legal costs so, provided your legal bill does not exceed the cover, you will pay nothing. 3. Solicitor's Hourly Rate Sometimes, the claim might be very straight forward and the settlement amount quite high. You may chose to pay the solicitor based on their hourly rate if you believe this is better for you. The difficulty with this method is, you will not know until the end of the case and you will have to pay the bill whether your case is won or lost. What do I do now? Once you complete our on enquiry form with the basic details about your employment claim, we will forward those details onto a specialist solicitor who will contact you to discuss your potential claim in more detail. If the solicitor believes you have a good case, he will suggest the options open to you and may offer to send you a No Win NO Fee Agreement or ask you to check your insurance cover. You will then agree with your solicitor, the method of payment that best suits the situation. You may still chose to fund the case yourself if you want to. What happens if the solicitor has doubts about my case? Please remember that the solicitor is an expert in Employment Law and will have dealt with many cases, often similar to yours. It is best to take their advice. However, sometimes a case is higher risk (could be settled for you or against you) and often the insurance company won't agree to underwrite the costs and your solicitor may be unwilling to deal on a No Win No Fee basis due to the high risk of not getting paid. In such situations, if you were determined to make a claim, you would need to fund this yourself using the hourly rate method. And don't forget that whatever the method of payment, Employee Claims Centre will never charge you anything. |
