Trethowans Solicitors Urge Claimants to Take Action Before April 2013 Civil Justice Reforms

In an article on the firm’s official blog, Trethowans Solicitors have urged injured claimants to pursue legal action before controversial civil justice reforms come into effect in April 2013.

The government’s heavily criticised Jackson Reforms will alter the funding of both personal injury claims and medical negligence claims; and will impact the claimants’ rights to recover parts of their legal costs.

For this reason, Trethowans are encouraging the victims of road traffic accidents, workplace accidents, and other incidents to take action before the reforms are brought into effect.

In the post, first published on 8 February 2013 on the Trethowans blog, the company summarises all of the changes which are due to take effect in 2013. These changes include the following:

• Success Fees to be paid by claimants and not the other side. Current legislation states that solicitors are entitled to charge a success fee (percentage uplift on their fees) in conditional fee agreement cases such as No Win No Fee cases. Whilst this fee was previously paid by the other side, it will now be paid by the claimant.
• Damages based agreements will be introduced. This is an alternative means to funding cases.  Fees in successful cases will be calculated at an agreed percentage (25% limit) of any damages won by the claimant.
• Qualified one way cost shifting is also to be introduced, which states that a claimant is not responsible for the defendant’s costs in unsuccessful cases. Currently, the default position is that the winning party pays the loser’s costs. 
• There is also a change to the recoverability of After the Event Insurance premiums. After the Event Insurance is taken out to cover the costs of the other side if a claim is unsuccessful, but from April 2013, these sums will not be recoverable from the other side except in the cases of some clinical negligence claims.

Contact Information

C Fanner

Marketing Director

Trethowans

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