Solicitors Fees and Payments

No, you will never have to pay us any legal costs in advance.

No win, no fee agreements mean that we only get paid if your claim is successful. And, if we are successful in getting you compensation and we can’t recover all of our legal costs from your opponent, we won’t make you pay the difference.

Other firms will deduct any unrecovered fees from your compensation, even when they win.

The legal costs recoverable from your opponent are now fixed in most personal injury cases. Many personal injury firms will recover fees for any work they do over and above these fixed amounts from your compensation.

At Thompsons, if the amount we can recover in your case is fixed, we will not ask you to pay any shortfall for additional work we carry out.

‘No win, no fee’ means that if your case isn’t successful, you will not have to pay any legal costs. Under a no win, no fee arrangement, Thompsons will cover all expenses as the case progresses - things like court fees and medical report fees.

We will not send you any bills, there will be no hidden charges and if your case isn’t successful, you won’t have to pay anything towards your opponent’s costs.

You can find more information on our no win, no fee page.

ATE insurance provides cover for your opponent’s legal costs in case the court orders you to pay all (or part of them) during your case.

Unlike other firms, Thompsons won’t insist you take out an ATE insurance policy straight away (although, due to the complexity of medical negligence or catastrophic injury cases, we may ask you to do so).

If we do recommend you take out ATE insurance, the policies we recommend usually have lower premiums than those suggested by other personal injury firms. The policy premiums are lower, because, in many cases, we bear the burden of expenses like medical reports and court fees so you don’t need to insure against these.

Usually, our recommendation is to take out insurance only when necessary, for example, when court proceedings need to be issued. This means you won’t have to pay for the cost of the insurance if your case settles sooner.

Thompsons includes the cost of any ATE insurance in the cost of our success fees, not on top.

You may already have insurance

Before entering into a CFA with you we are required by law to check if you already have any legal expenses insurance that would cover the cost of your case. For example, your household and contents insurance policy may offer legal expenses insurance as part of the package.

You will be sent a questionnaire about home or other insurance. You will need to complete and send this back to us.

An important principle in UK law is that ‘the polluter pays’. This means that if your personal injury claim is successful, we will try to recover our basic legal fees and outlays from the other side.

If you win, we will charge you a success fee. The success fee is a capped at 25% of your compensations amount, but at Thompsons (unlike other law firms), we cap our success fee at 20%, other than in catastrophic injury or medical negligence cases.

Any success fee that we charge will be explained to you and confirmed in writing when we decide if there is a case to pursue.

Thompsons Solicitors is an ancillary insurance intermediary.

We are not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. However, we are included on the register maintained by the Financial Conduct Authority so that we can carry on insurance distribution activity, which is broadly the advising on, selling and administration of insurance contracts.

This part of our business, including arrangements for complaints or redress if something goes wrong, is regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

The register can be accessed via the Financial Conduct Authority website at www.fca.org.uk/firms/financial-services-register.

Trade union members keep 100% of their compensation because their claims are funded by their union; this is just one of the many benefits of joining a union – something we encourage all workers to do.

In non-catastrophic injury and medical negligence cases, non-union members keep a minimum of 80% of their compensation because we cap our success fees at 20%.

Moreover, unlike many other law firms, Thompsons includes the cost of any ATE insurance policy we advise you to take out within the success fee we charge – not on top.

No. A no win, no fee agreement means that if your case doesn’t succeed (but, don’t worry, the vast majority do) Thompsons will carry the costs associated with your claim, including any medical report charges and court fees incurred.