T
he principle behind personal injury compensation is to restore the person who has suffered the personal injury to the state that they were before. But along came commercialization – and with all other things, personal injury claims suffered too. Over the past decade, the system has seen inefficiency and exploitation.
Legal costs often exceed the compensation received. This turns the whole system into a rigmarole, with no one gaining anything except third parties. The simple principle behind the compensation - that of restoring the claimant to his previous position - is lost. This deters even the honest claimant who has actually suffered personal injury from coming forward.
What is the No Win No Fee Argument?
What if you only needed to pay if you won the case and not otherwise? Popularly known as no-win no-fee agreements, it ensures that even in the case of a win, the amount of fee a lawyer can ask for is limited. This limit is set at a quarter of the damages, but this excludes future care and loss damages. There is another qualifier to this. The limit of a quarter of the damages should not exceed the base costs. However if the case goes to appeal, any such restrictions do not apply there. The fee is confidentially negotiated and decided between the client and the lawyer.
The motive behind the system of no-win no-fee is mainly to protect people from lawyers who promise them exorbitant claims and demand an advance fee, even if the claim has no merit in it. With CFAs and DBAs, this practice can be controlled.
