Funding Arrangements
Legal Aid
WHAT IS LEGAL AID?
Legal aid is a system of government funding for those who cannot afford to pay their own legal costs.
Legal aid is administered by the Legal Services Commission.
Dowse & Co have had Legal Services Commission accreditation for several years in housing, family, personal injury and employment work. Our contracts were awarded following in-depth audits by the Legal Services Commission, who reported that the firm is “well organised and managed”.
WHEN IS LEGAL AID AVAILABLE?
Legal aid is available for many areas of English law, including Housing, Employment and Family law. Legal aid is available for claims for breach of statutory duty, such as children harmed in care and for police assaults. It is not available for most Personal Injury claims arising from negligence. These are usually funded by conditional fee (“No win, No fee”) agreements. Most claims arising in disputes between businesses are also excluded from legal aid.
There are restrictions on the availability of legal aid for Employment law – see the Employment Law section for more details.
WILL I QUALIFY FOR LEGAL AID?
To obtain legal aid you need to satisfy a merits test and a financial eligibility test.
To pass the financial eligibility test your income and capital needs to be below a certain level. You can check if you are eligible for public funding by using Community Legal Service eligibility calculator or by contacting the Community Legal Service direct on 0845 608 1122.
Conditional Fee Agreements (“No Win, No Fee”)
Under a Conditional Fee Agreement we will only charge you for work done on your case if you win. If you win, your opponent will usually agree to pay your legal costs or will be ordered to do so, so we can then recover our costs from your opponent. Model Law Society Terms and Conditions apply and we will charge if you are in breach of the Conditional Fee Agreement and we have to abandon the case or if you pull out or cause irrecoverable expense.
In almost all cases you will keep 100% of the compensation we recover for you in such claims.
In most cases it is possible to arrange an “After the Event” insurance policy to protect you against liability in case your case is lost. Often we can arrange for the insurance policy premium to be payable only at the end of the case and only if you win.
Both the success fee and the insurance premium are usually recovered from your opponent if you win the case.
Private Funding Arrangements and Legal Expenses Insurance
We explain how charges are calculated at the outset of the work, who will undertake it and their charging rate - and we provide our best estimate of the work or the particular stage we are handling for you. Where appropriate, we can offer a simple finance agreement to pay our legal charges by fixed monthly installments, for a competitive credit charge, through Premium Credit Limited.
Where you already have existing legal expense cover we can explain whether your policy is suitable and can be used to fund your legal costs.
