We offer a first consultation free of charge. At that consultation we will be able to discuss with you whether you are likely to be able to succeed in a claim for compensation and how the legal costs should be funded. The basic ways of funding legal costs are as follows: -

i) Legal Aid. This is no longer available for personal injury claims and is only available subject to means testing for claims involving clinical negligence.

ii) Legal Expense Insurance. Legal expense insurance policies are becoming more common and are often purchased in conjunction with motor or home insurance policies. A significant proportion of legal expense insurers try to persuade you to use their own claims service or their company's panel solicitors. However, we are frequently able to persuade legal expense insurers to instruct us to pursue your claim.

European legislation and the Insurance Ombudsman can be used to persuade reluctant legal expense insurers to release the claim to us. There are many advantages to Barratt Goff & Tomlinson handling your claim. If you are in doubt then we can contact your legal expense insurers on your behalf to see whether we can act for you with the benefit of the legal expense policy.

iii) Conditional Fee Agreements "no win - no fee". The majority of our clients opt for funding their claims for compensation through a Conditional Fee Agreement.  

If you lose:- You will not be required to pay any fees and a separate insurance policy is taken out to cover your disbursements (Court fees, medical report fees etc) and the other sides costs.

If your claim is successful:- You will be able to claim back the majority of our costs, disbursements incurred and the cost of the insurance policy from the other side.

At the first meeting you will receive further, detailed advice with regard to Conditional Fee Agreements.