All personal injury firms offer no win no fee agreements. However, they are not all the same and if you know what to look for, much more of your settlement stays in your pocket. 

25% fee cap vs daylight robbery

A good way to ensure that you get the vast majority of your settlement or judgment is to put a cap on how much your lawyer can charge you.

In Queensland, the law allows solicitors to take up to 50% from your settlement. In most cases, taking 50% would be completely unjustified and yet many personal injury firms continue this practice.

At Denes Lawyers, we charge maximum 25%. Remember, this is the maximum – if our final fee is lower than 25%, we charge the lower amount.

We are not aware of other firms who have a similar offer.

So why do we offer a 25% cap? It’s because it provides a fair outcome for both parties – our clients and ourselves. At our firm, Oszkar Denes handles all personal injury claims. While Oszkar now represents exclusively injured claimants, in the past he used to act for insurance companies, so he knows all the tricks and tactics. The reality is, when you are competent, it is entirely possible to keep your professional fees at a reasonable level and still deliver great value.

Warning about “no risk” guarantees

Some firms say that they guarantee that if you take your case to trial, and you lose, you not only don’t have to pay your own lawyer, but you won’t have to pay the successful party’s costs either.

Be careful with with such guarantees. First of all, if you lose your case, the court will order you (and not your lawyer) to contribute to the successful party’s legal costs.  Some lawyers say that if this happens, they will pay these costs for you. Ask yourself the question: how do you actually enforce this? What if your lawyer doesn’t have the money to pay these costs? (Remember, there are lawyers out there who need the money more than you do…) Or, what if your lawyer just doesn’t want to honour their promise? Will you sue them? How long will that take and how much will it cost you?

The truth is there is no such thing as risk free litigation, and that’s why the most important thing is to select a good lawyer who will give you quality advice. This the best way to ensure you get maximum compensation and to protect yourself against a negative outcome.

Lower hourly rates

Some firms in Queensland charge $500 to $600 per hour, and we have seen some charging as much as $800 per hour (they describe it as $200 per one quarter hour). No one is worth that much.

Why do some firms charge such high hourly rates? It’s not because their staff is so skilled. Rather, this is how they pay for unrealistic daily billable targets, TV and radio advertising and fancy offices with views of the river. By the way, none of these things get you anything extra in the pocket.

We don’t have these expenses, meaning we can afford to provide high quality legal services at much lower rates.

No uplift fees

Let’s say your legal fee is $10,000. Now, imagine your lawyer says: “I am going to increase this fee by 25% to $12,500.” That’s an uplift fee. For some reason, it is still legal in Queensland.

The usual justification for an uplift fee is that the reason you should pay this is because your lawyer agreed to take a risk and act for you on a no win no fee basis.

But isn’t that their job? So why should they take 25% extra just for doing their actual job?

Bottom line: do not ever sign an agreement that allows your lawyer to charge uplift fees. And be careful: some agreements say that the lawyer will be “reasonable” when they set their uplift fee at the end of your matter. That’s nonsense. If the agreement allows for uplift fees, you can be sure it will be charged at the highest possible rate. Don’t fall for this.

We pay outlays

There can be a lot of expenses associated with running a compensation claim. Let’s say we need two medical specialist reports, and we also need to file a claim in court. The doctors will charge fees, and so will the court. In this scenario, we are talking roughly $10,000 in expenses. This is nothing unusual and there are claims with much bigger expenses.

Some firms will ask you to pay for these upfront or take out a loan. If you pay upfront, you face the risk that you might not ever recover these costs. If you take out a loan, there will be high interest rates, which reduce the overall settlement.

When you are injured and can’t work, the last thing you need is to have to worry about paying big expenses to fund your claim.

In all our claims, we pay for all expenses upfront. We do not charge you any interest either.

Where to from here

If you would like to discuss your compensation claim with us, we would be happy to schedule a time with Oszkar Denes, our Principal Solicitor. Please call us on (07) 3063 2268 or email info@deneslawyers.com.au and we will be happy to help.