Legal Aid and No Win No Fee

No win no fee agreements were introduced in 1995, even though legal aid, the system in place for helping people gain access to the courts, wasn’t fully abolished for personal injury claims until April 2000. At the same time, legal aid also became known as ‘Public Funding’ (and is still available for medical negligence claims).

What is legal aid? Legal aid is an area of government funding that was introduced to help people access the courts more easily, when they may not have been able to otherwise. Legal aid enabled them to get a fair hearing and solve any problems, including those that contribute to social exclusion.

Why was it introduced? The objective of legal aid is to help as many people as possible, within a limited budget and assuming they meet the eligibility requirements. Help could be given as advice on legal problems such as debt, eviction or family breakdown; explaining peoples’ rights and the law; advice to those detained at police stations; as well as representing people in court if necessary.

Legal aid is fundamental to social justice, by helping everyone who may need it, reducing discrimination based on financial situations and enabling easier access to court. This is important because, before it was introduced, a lot of people would choose not to go to court due to the costs involved.

How it works Legal Aid is available for many types of civil legal problem, such as a dispute with a person, company or other organisation. You can also get legal aid for criminal cases, depending on your circumstances.

In England and Wales, this scheme is run by the Legal Services Commission (LSC), which is overseen by the Ministry of Justice. The budget is set by the Treasury.

The objective vision of the LSC is to make quality legal aid more accessible, provide legal advice as an efficient organisation and ensure effective delivery of justice and legal advice.

When was it introduced? Legal Aid was officially introduced in 1949, after the Second World War, but it wasn’t until 1999 that the Access to Justice Act was passed, which gave control and responsibility to the LSC, and arguably aimed to provide more structure to legal aid.

When was it removed for personal injury cases? Even though no win no fee, or condition fee agreements, have been in place since 1995, legal aid wasn’t abolished for personal injury cases until 2000.

How this affects people/ legal aid system Legal Aid helped people who couldn’t afford to pursue claims. Without Legal Aid, if they lost the claim, they would have to pay the other side’s costs, as well as their own lawyer’s costs. Legal aid protected them against that risk.

The Government abolished Legal Aid for personal Injury cases to make savings to the public purse. To ensure people could still make claims, they extended no win no fee agreements, by allowing lawyers to recover extra costs from the other side in successful cases. This was on the basis that the no win no fee solicitors got paid nothing at all if they lost the case.

The premium for an insurance policy to protect a claimant against the other side’s costs in a losing case is also now recoverable from the other side.

To read more about No Win No Fee, visit our No Win No Fee page. Alternatively, give the National Accident Helpline™ a call if you have any questions or are thinking of making a claim.