Terms & Privacy Policy
Data Protection and Confidentiality
In the course of providing legal services to you, we may acquire either direct from yourself or from third parties, personal data about you. We may also acquire sensitive personal data (which means information regarding your racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or other beliefs, membership of a trade union, your physical or mental health, sexual like, the commission or alleged commission by you of an offence or any criminal proceedings against you).
If such personal data or sensitive data is obtained it will be processed and used to enable us to provide the service which you have instructed us to provide to you. By instructing us to act on your behalf you give your explicit consent to the storage, processing and use of this personal data and sensitive personal data and the possible transfer of the data within and outside the United Kingdom.
We may also use personal data (but never sensitive personal data) which we collect after you contact us to market our full range of services to you. If you do not wish for your personal data to be used for marketing purposes please advise us.
It is likely that we may have to disclose certain information to third parties in order to progress your claim, for example medical expert’s reports. We will only disclose such information having discussed the matter with you and after obtaining your consent to the disclosure.
We do not send or store any of your information outside of the European Economic Area.
If you are an individual, you have the following rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR):
- Right to access personal data – you can request details from us of the personal data that we hold about you;
- Right to object to processing – you can tell us that you want us to stop processing
- Right to rectification – you can ask us to correct personal data that we hold because you believe it is inaccurate;
- Right to erasure – you can ask us to delete the personal data that we hold about you;
- Right to restrict processing – you can tell us that you only want us to use the personal data for a specific reason.
Please note that the rights described in the above clause, are not absolute rights (they are not rights that will be automatically granted), as we have to consider whether there are any reasons why we cannot meet your request. For example, we will not be able to delete data that we are legally obliged to keep. We will let you know if we not able to meet your request and the reason why (where it is appropriate to disclose this information to you).
You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you are not happy with the way that we handle your personal data. You can contact the ICO at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF or by calling the ICO’s helpline on 0303 123 1113.
Please note that where you provide consent to us using your personal data, you are entitled to withdraw that consent at any time.
Our Charges and Funding Options
It is important you understand your responsibilities for the other side’s costs and ours. A person pursuing a claim is responsible for his/her own legal costs and must recover them from the other party at the conclusion of the case if he/she wins.
If you lose you will normally have the benefit of Qualified One-Way Cost Shifting (you do not pay for the other side’s legal costs whatsoever) so the court will not usually enforce an order for costs against you, unless:
- the proceedings have been struck out, or
- the claim is fundamentally dishonest, or
- the claim includes a claim for the financial benefit of someone else.
If you fail to beat your opponent’s Formal Offer to Settle you will not have the benefit of Qualified One-Way Cost Shifting so you may be required to pay your opponent’s charges from the last date the Formal Offer to Settle could have been accepted to the date of trial/conclusion of the claim only to the extent that the aggregate amount in money terms of any order does not exceed the aggregate amount in money terms of any orders for damages and interest made in your favour.
Qualified One-Way Cost Shifting does not apply if you lose a pre-action application hearing (a hearing before court proceedings have been commenced) and you may be required to pay your opponent’s charges of that hearing to the full extent of any costs order made.
We have commenced your claim on a “no win, no fee” basis therefore there will be no charge by us if your claim does not succeed unless it transpires that your claim is fundamentally dishonest/fraudulent.
There will be a success fee as part of the ‘no win no fee’ agreement and this is set at 100% of our basic charges, where the claim concludes at trial; or 100% where the claim concludes before a trial has commenced.
There is a maximum limit on the amount of the success fee which we can recover from you.
That maximum limit is 25% of the total amount of any:
(i) general damages for pain suffering and loss of amenity; and
(ii) damages for pecuniary loss, other than future pecuniary loss;
which are awarded to you in the proceedings covered by this agreement. The maximum limit is applicable to these damages net of any sums recoverable by the Compensation Recovery Unit of the Department of Work and Pensions. The maximum limit is inclusive of any VAT which is chargeable.
We will bear the cost of running the action along with ongoing disbursements such as obtaining medical records and medical reports. The normal position is that if your claim succeeds the third party insurance company will pay your compensation.
Although we will be claiming our costs from your opponent, we are obliged to inform you how our fees are calculated. If your claim settles without the need of issuing Court Proceedings, we will be entitled to fixed costs in accordance with the Court Rules.
Should it become necessary for us to issue court proceedings we will be entitled to charge an hourly rate for the work carried out on your file and the hourly rate will be that which is prescribed by the local County Court.
This letter should be read in conjunction with the Conditional Fee Agreement which is enclosed with this letter. Please sign where indicated and return the Conditional Fee Agreement to us as soon as possible.
Committed. Experienced. Trusted.