# PI settlement cheque - no win no fee basis



## suicra05 (22 Jul 2010)

A colleague of mine has had a Personal injuries case settled in his favour in court by the judge. The solicitor who took the case on a no win, no fee basis wants my colleague to sign a Settlement Authority so as he can lodge the settlement cheque to a client account. He will then take his fee and other expenses out of that. Is this normal practice? 

The settlement cheque is for 14,500 euro and his fee and expenses over and above those costs paid by the defendants he says will be approximately 2,000 euro. Is that reasonable ?


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## csirl (22 Jul 2010)

What costs/expenses would there be over and above those paid by the defendants? Doesnt make sense. Normally settlement cheques are made out to the person taking the case and they lodge in their own bank accounts. Personally, I would be very very uncomfortable with someone taking a cheque paid out to me and then deducting expenses/costs etc. - if there are costs/expenses that I have to pay, I'd rather be invoiced.


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## droileen (22 Jul 2010)

What the Solicitor is suggesting is the way in which they used to handle settled claims - it was a lottery what deductions were made by them, until you got the residual amount into your hand. 

You are now entitled to a "bill of costs" etc. up front - contact the Incorporated Law Society for guidance on this matter - you don`t have to go into the Solicitor`s details, if you don`t choose.


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## a lawyer (22 Jul 2010)

this is impossible to give a view on without knowing what your friend's solicitor has done in the case.  if your friend's solicitor properly account for fees and outlays then your friend doesn't have an issue.  the solicitor is estimating what fees won't be recovered so that the balance of the settlement cheque can be sent out immediately.  In circumstances where the office account probably has a hole in it in terms of outlay spent on the case perhaps people might understand that some form of security is needed.

perhaps however the evil solicitor shouldn't have bothered funding the case as it went along and agreed not to be paid a penny for a couple of years.  your friend could then have paid money upfront.  your friend could have got an itemised bill every month that he/she could have paid indicating what hours were spent on the file.  subsequent to the case concluding then your friend would have been told that the costs one gets from the other side will not cover what he had spent on the case to date, but that the solicitor would do his best and (for a continuing payment upfront) would push the costs issue all the way to taxation before the county registrar.

people should be careful before wishing away what is effectively free legal aid in civil litigation.


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## whitegrass (22 Jul 2010)

perish the thought if the friend was asked for €2,000.00 at the start of the case to fund medical reports (average cost €300.00, Court fees and other outlays).  Solicitors take on risk when taking on personal injuries cases which they invariably have to fund from their own resources.  Should the Solicitor have to continue to bear that risk after the case has been concluded?  With that said a client is entitled to and should receive a fully itemised bill from the Solicitor.


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## a lawyer (23 Jul 2010)

agree with you there whitegrass on the bill front.

my view is that a lot of the difficulties with the perception of the profession in these matters relates a history of not properly setting out, if there was money to be paid by the client directly at the conclusion of a case, exactly what that money related to.


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## McCrack (28 Jul 2010)

On the face of it I dont see anything wrong with this. PIAB fee (which is normally around €2K) is a solicitor-client cost and thus not recoverable from the other side (defendants). The solicitor in this instance usually seeks to recover this from the settlement/award.

Nothing unusual about this. It's standard practice.


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## csirl (29 Jul 2010)

McCrack said:


> On the face of it I dont see anything wrong with this. PIAB fee (which is normally around €2K) is a solicitor-client cost and thus not recoverable from the other side (defendants). The solicitor in this instance usually seeks to recover this from the settlement/award.
> 
> Nothing unusual about this. It's standard practice.


 
This wasnt settled at the PIAB - it went to Court. If you win a Court case, the other side pays all your expenses including any costs incurred by the solicitors.


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## a lawyer (29 Jul 2010)

sorry csirl - that simply is not so.


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## Homer (29 Jul 2010)

a lawyer said:


> sorry csirl - that simply is not so.


 
Pardon me for asking a stupid question, but why would an award of costs not cover *all* costs?

Is it because the plaintiff's solicitors incurred some costs that ended up (for whatever reason) not being relevant to the settlement? If so, then presumably the plaintiff's solicitor should have explained this in advance and should have quantified the amount that would not be recoverable from the other side.

I can understand that the solicitor may be concerned about not getting paid if the settlement is given directly to the plaintiff, but I would have through that this is unlikely to happen if there is a reasonable explanation for these costs and why they were not covered as part of the settlement.

Or is the extra amount a 'reward' given to the solicitor for the risk he took in taking on the case on a 'no foal, no fee' basis?


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## whitegrass (29 Jul 2010)

The Solicitor should set out in writing why he or she is seeking to make a deduction from the settlement cheque. In the absence of clear details from the person making the post one can only speculate.  However the deductions may be for the following:
1. An amount to cover outlays which will not be paid as part of costs e.g. some medics charge well in excess of the allowable €300 (approx) for medical reports (I had one instance recently of a fee of over €900 for a standard report from a neurosurgeon when clearly only say €350 would "tax").
2. The same may apply to an engineer's report or accountant's report. Engineers however tend to accept the taxed amount but accountants generally require the client to pay the shortfall between the taxed amount and the charged amount.
3. The Solicitor may have undertaken work which does not form part of party and party costs (party and party costs are the costs payable by the losing side) and are a solicitor and client cost e.g. the giving of undertakings or the costs of an application to PIAB are not payable by a Defendant.

The €2,000.00 should be held in trust by the Solicitor pending the outcome of finalisation of the costs, the client advised throughout and any overpayment repaid to the client.


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## a lawyer (30 Jul 2010)

Homer, not a stupid question at all.

see what whitegrass said, and also the work done in the PIAB process isn't recoverable (wrongly i'd have thought, given that the PIAB process clearly didn't conclude the matter, but PIAB brought in that particular nugget)

the "reward" element that you mention is legal in UK - indeed it's accepted.  The solicitor provides a funding service and risks not getting paid, and in consideration of that gets an "uplift" on fees as a contractual benefit.  I'm open to correction but I believe that this uplift would tax (i.e. the English taxing master would say that it's a fair charge and properly incurred etc) - so the Defendant pays.  You might still have items that won't tax in UK such as the full cost of reports etc.

this uplift on fees is not part of the legal furniture here.  

Simply put, you do not get all your costs paid by the Defendant in Ireland.  If there is no deduction from your settlement in a personal injury case (by agreement and further to a bill i'd hasten to add) then your solicitor is waiving some fees and possibly outlay.


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## csirl (30 Jul 2010)

a lawyer said:


> Simply put, you do not get all your costs paid by the Defendant in Ireland. If there is no deduction from your settlement in a personal injury case (by agreement and further to a bill i'd hasten to add) then your solicitor is waiving some fees and possibly outlay.


 
What costs would not be paid by the Defendant, assuming that you were awarded full costs or settled on the basis of full costs?

I've been involved in a number of PI cases thru my work and there has never been a circumstance where everything wasnt paid by the other side. This includes some cases where individuals were named as plaintiffs. In all cases, the settlement cheque was in the name of the individual and was sent directly to the individual. Solicitor always informed the client of the costs, but never invoiced or sought payment as these costs were always for the other side (without going into detail, we never lost a case).

In all cases, no money was ever paid in advance to the solicitors.


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## McCrack (30 Jul 2010)

csirl said:


> This wasnt settled at the PIAB - it went to Court. If you win a Court case, the other side pays all your expenses including any costs incurred by the solicitors.


 
No since PIAB (A) Act 2007 Injuries Board fee is not recoverable from a Defendant and like I have said this is usually €2k plus Vat. It's deemed a solicitor-client cost and not a party-party cost.

See Whitegrass's post for further clarification.


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