A brief history of no win no fee
No win no fee lawyers have received a bad press of late with many of them being dubbed as ambulance chasers, and now with the recent rise in councils and health authorities releasing the information on how much legal fees are costing them the media backlash against no win no fee lawyers has truly begun. Yet the whole the ideas of no win no fee hasn’t always been around. So when was the legal term born, what was the original intention of now win no fee, and most importantly is it improving or hindering our legal service.
There was a time before No win No fee when people who believed they had a valid personal injury claim they had to rely on legal aid to help them make their claim meaning that the government assisted with the legal fees when the client could not afford to pay the legal fees.
The government at the time decided that the cost of legal aid was becoming too high and the solution no win no fee was born. It was designed to allow people who are unable to afford legal fees to make personal injury claims with ease. The original plan was that lawyers operating under the system of no win no fees could charge up to 20 percent of the compensation received. Lawyers at the time liked the idea but believed that it was an unrealistic expectation for lawyers to work under this basis. The lawyers had the argument that if they where to operate under the capped rate of 20 percent then they would have to win at least five out of every six cases to break even.
This argument was good enough to persuade the Tory government at the time to push up the amount lawyers can charge up to 40 percent. In 1998 the idea was released upon the public and the response from the media was that the UK was developing a similar compensation culture to the Americans. Lots of new legal firms sprung up over night with expensive ad campaigns let everyone know that where there was blame there was a claim.
So the big question is ten years on has no win no fee improved our legal service or are we clogging up the legal system with pointless claims. There is no doubt that no win no fee has allowed more and more to make personal injury claims and there is no doubt that people with a legitimate claim have the right to make claims, but people have started to abuse the system by making silly claims such as taking a school to court for confiscating a mobile phone.
The no win no fee system has certainly made the legal system more accessible but ten years down the line there is no doubt that some are abusing the system, lawyers taking on cases that can easily be settled out of court. This is the biggest problem effecting the no win non fee system and something needs to be done by the government to encourage claimants to settle out of court thus reducing the legal fees having to be paid out by local councils and health authorities.Updated on 10/23/2008