CONDITIONAL FEE
AGREEMENT
(An
example)
Back
| Schedule
1 | Schedule
2 | Law Society Conditions
This agreement is a binding legal contract between you and your solicitor/s. Before you sign, please read everything carefully.
Words like "our disbursements", "basic charges", "win", and "lose" are explained in condition 3 of the Law Society Conditions which you could also read carefully.
Agreement date
[.......................]
We, the solicitors
Sutcliffe Reed of 8 Cross Street, Preston
You, the client
[.......................]
What is covered by this agreement:-
-
Your claim against [.......................] for damages for personal injury suffered on [..../..../....]
- Any appeal by your opponent.
- Any appeal you make against an interim order during the proceedings.
- Any proceedings you take to enforce a judgment, order or agreement.
What is not covered by this agreement: -
- Any counterclaim against you.
- Any appeal you make against the final order.
Paying us
If you win your claim, you pay our basic charges, our disbursements and a success fee. The amount of these is not based on or limited by the damages. You are entitled to seek recovery from your opponent of part or all of our basic charges, disbursements, a success fee and insurance premium. Please also see conditions 4 and 6.
It may be that your opponent makes a Part 36 offer or payment which you reject and, on our advice, your claim for damages goes ahead to trial where you recover damages that are less than that offer or payment. We will not add our success fee to the basic charges for the work done after we received notice of the offer or payment.
If you receive interim damages, we may require you to pay our disbursements at that point and a reasonable amount for our future disbursements.
If you receive provisional damages, we are entitled to payment of our basic charges our disbursements and success fee at that point.
If you win but on the way lose an interim hearing, you may be required to pay your opponents charges of that hearing. Please see conditions 3(h) and 5.
If on the way to winning or losing you win an interim hearing, then we are entitled to payment of our basic charges and disbursements related to that hearing together with success fee on those charges if you win overall.
If you lose, you pay your opponent's charges and disbursements You may be able to take out an insurance policy against this risk. Please also see conditions 3(j) and 5. If you lose, you do not pay our charges but we may require you to pay disbursements.
If you end this agreement before you win or lose, you pay our basic charges. If you go on to win, you pay a success fee. Please also see condition 7(a).
Basic Charges
These are for work done from now until this agreement ends.
How we calculate basic charges
These are calculated for each hour engaged on your matter (form now on until the review date on 1st January 2001). Routine letters and telephone calls will be charged as units of one tenth of an hour. Other letters and telephone calls will be charged on a time basis. The hourly rates are:
- Solicitors who are Partners in the
firm
£120.00 - Other Solicitors and legal executives
and other staff of equivalent experience
£105.00 - Trainee Solicitors and other staff
of equivalent experience
£85.00
Success Fee
This is [.......................] % of our basic charges.
The reason for calculating the success fee at this level are set out in schedule 1 to this agreement.
You cannot recover from you opponent the part of the success fee that relates to the cost to us of postponing receipt of our charges and disbursements (as set out in paragraphs (a) and (b) at schedule 1). This part of the success fee remains payable by you.
Value added tax (VAT)
We add VAT, at the rate (now 17.5%) that applies when the work is done, to the total of the basic charges and success fee.
Law Society Conditions
The Society Conditions are attached because they are part of this agreement. Any amendments or additions to them will apply to you. You should read the conditions carefully and ask us about anything you find unclear.
Other Points
Immediately before you signed this agreement, we verbally explained to you the effect of this agreement and in particular the following:
- The circumstances in which you may be liable to pay our disbursements and charges;
- The circumstances in which you may seek assessment of our charges and disbursements and the procedure for doing so;
- Whether we consider that your risk of becoming liable for any costs in these proceedings is insured under an existing contract of insurance;
- Other methods of financing those costs, including private funding, Community Legal Service funding, Legal Expenses Insurance, Trade Union Funding;
- (a)In all circumstances, on the information
currently available to us, we believe that a contract of insurance with
[.......................] is appropriate. Detailed reasons for this
are set out in set out in Schedule 2.
(b)In any event, we believe it is desirable for you
to insure your opponent's charges and disbursements in case you lose.
(c)We confirm that we do not have an interest in recommending this particular insurance agreement.
Signatures
Signed for the Solicitor/s.......................................................................
SUTCLIFFE REED
Signed by the client..............................................................................
I confirm that my solicitor has verbally explained to me the matters in paragraphs (a) to (e) under the "Other points" above.
Signed................................................................................................
CLIENT
I specifically confirm that I verbally explained to the client the matters in paragraphs (a) to (e) under "Other points" and confirm the matters at (e) in writing in Schedule 2.
Signed................................................................................................
SUTCLIFFE REED
This agreement complies with the Conditional Fee Agreement Regulations 2000 (S.I.2000 no.692)