Overview
Harcus Parker has close links with the funding and insurance markets.
Funding your case
Legal action is expensive but the costs of litigation can be met in a variety of ways:
- you might choose to pay the costs yourself;
- Damages Based Agreement: this is an arrangement whereby your solicitors are not paid unless you win or settle your case, in which case they receive a pre-agreed percentage of the money recovered;
- Conditional Fee Agreement: this is an arrangement whereby your solicitors reduce their bills during the course of the case by a percentage (up to 100%) on condition that if the claim succeeds, they will be repaid the discount, plus a success fee; and
- third party funding: alternatively, you may be able to enter into an agreement with ‘third party funders’, who will finance the legal costs of the case in exchange for a share of the winnings if the case settles or wins at trial.
These options can be used in conjunction with one another. For example, Harcus Parker has experience of acting for groups of claimants where some self-fund and some use third party funding; in other cases we have agreed to act on a damages based agreement, or a conditional fee agreement by which we reduce our charges, with the balance being met by a third party funder.
THIRD PARTY FUNDING
The team at Harcus Parker is well-known in the litigation funding world and has a good track record of obtaining third party funding in appropriate cases.
ADVERSE COSTS INSURANCE
The normal rule in cases brought in England and Wales is that if you lose a case you must pay the other side’s reasonable legal costs. This risk can be insured using specialist insurance called ‘ATE Insurance’. We have good relationships with the leading brokers in this market and we are well known to the major insurers.
Third party funders will not generally fund a case unless there is ATE insurance in place.