Beware Dodgy ‘No Win, No Fee’ Agreements

Posted 07/02/2014

‘No win, no fee’ agreements or Conditional Fee Agreements have been under increasing amounts of scrutiny in recent years. The regulations that govern the way that the Agreements operate changed on 1 April 2013. This was designed to reign in some of the excesses of the ‘No win, no fee” system that have plagued the legal system and have attracted critical headlines in the press for a number of years.

The Legal Ombudsmen has recently published a report which has outlined some of the worst cases of ‘No win, no fee’ Agreements that they have experienced. Within this report they have said that they have ordered £1,000,000 in compensation to parties who have fallen victim to dodgy ‘No win, no fee,’ agreements. The Ombudsmen gave an example of one of the worst cases they had seen, where a Claimant was told to pay £24,000 to a firm that had withdrawn from acting for him before he went to Court by himself and won. The firm dropped the case halfway through the proceedings having advised him that he had no chance of winning.

At Ashtons Legal Solicitors, we have an experienced team of lawyers who can advise on professional negligence claims against solicitors who operate in ways such as this. If you feel you have been the victim of these kinds of sharp practices, please contact us for a discussion on how we may be able to help.