If you believe your case may be suitable for No-Win No-Fee or No-Win - Less Fee, then you can apply for a CFA online or request a call back from our CFA department.
Access to justice: at last there’s a viable way to pursue a claim
Lorrells claims to be the firm with a difference, and with its unique range of innovative litigation funding methods, this rings loud and true.
We appreciate that legal fees often make litigation cases unviable to pursue. Many professional funders offer litigation finance, but they will expect a share of around 20-30% of your damages if you win.
Lorrells wants you to keep 100% of your damages, and if we believe pursuing a case is viable, we are determined to find a suitable way for you to finance it. If we cannot find a suitable funding package for you, it’s likely that we will advise you that it is not in your best interests to pursue the claim.
We offer the following funding packages:
- Fast Track Assessment
- No Win - No Fee (CFA)
- No Win - Less Fee (CFA Lite)
- Fixed fees
Where possible, we will try to act using Conditional Fee Agreements (CFA), using an After the Event insurance policy (ATE) to pay your disbursements.
Fast Track Assessment
Pay for a full written opinion by an experienced solicitor with a view to acting for you under a CFA (no win – no fee) agreement. With out standard applications for CFA we consider your case within 21 days with a view to acting for you under a CFA. We will either take on your case, in which case you will be invited to attend a meeting, or we will reject your application without giving reason for our decision.
Alternatively, you can pay for a written opinion. We will contact you and consider your case within 72 hours and give you a full written advice on the merits of your case after we have obtained your further instructions and/or documentation. If we believe your prospects of success are above 40% we will offer you a full or discounted CFA. Fees start from £500 (increasing by complexity and/or the time required to consider your documents and take instructions). Fees are agreed and payable in advance and you will speak to a solicitor straight away. In appropriate cases you can attend our offices and we will take your instructions in a meeting. Please call for more information.
No Win - No Fee
A CFA is more commonly known as No Win-No Fee. Using this funding method, we do not charge you any fee unless you win your case, in which instance the fees are paid to us by the Defendant.
Should it be applicable, we will obtain an ATE policy to pay your disbursements – fees for expert opinions, court costs and Counsel – plus any other costs due should the case be lost. The ATE insurance premium is usually only payable if you win, and even then it is down to the Defendant to cover the cost.
We do not ask you to pay any costs up front or for the duration of the case, and of course you will not pay anything at all if you lose. Should you win, all of your damages will be awarded to you, and our fees will be recovered from the Defendant.
No Win - Less Fee
In many cases we are also able to offer a CFA Lite also known as 'No Win - Less Fee', an agreement whereby you pay anywhere between 15%-50% of our fees during the course of the case, then if you lose there is no more to pay. If on the other hand you win, you will pay our fees in full but will be able to recover around 75-80% of them from the other side. In some cases we will guarantee that you will recover 100% of your damages and we will limit our costs to those recovered from the Defendant.
Another type of CFA we offer is where we will only charge you if you win. The fees, payable at the end of the matter, can be recovered from the Defendant, although this will again be 75-80% of the total payable.
Fixed Fees
Fixed Fee funding involves you paying a set amount upfront. This type of funding is particularly suited to complex cases, those with high value outcomes and commercial litigation. The advantage is that all uncertainty with regard to costs is removed.
After estimating the total fees involved in handling your case should it proceed to trial, we set a fee made up of a percentage of that amount (normally 5-15%). Should the fixed fee you paid be exhausted, we then proceed into a No Win – No Fee funding arrangement. You know from the outset the total legal fees you need to finance.
So with all these funding options available to you, access to justice could now be possible for those who would previously have found it unviable to pursue a claim.
