An End to “No Win, No Fee”?

The government has recently said that it will ban referral fees in personal injury cases.

Justice secretary Ken Clarke said during a reading of the bill that the Ministry of Justice was considering a ban.

However, the Legal Services Board has refused to lend support to an outright ban and this has drawn criticism from areas like the Law Society and Jack Straw, a former justice secretary.

Straw has been openly critical of insurance providers for making profits from referrals that lead to conditional fee arrangements.

The current Justice Minister, Jonathan Djanogly said:

“Referral fees are one symptom of the compensation culture problem and too much money sloshing through the system.”

“People are being encouraged to sue, at no risk to themselves, leaving schools, business and individuals living in fear of being dragged to the courts for simply going about daily life.”

“We will ban referral fees and we will go further. We have proposals before parliament to end the bizarre situation in which people have no stake in the legal costs their cases bring. This will make claimants think harder about whether to sue and give insurance companies and business generally an incentive to pass the savings onto customers through lower prices.”

The ban on these fees is likely to see an uptake in the consume needing free legal advice from solicitors.
There are currently online services where you can speak to a solicitor for free.