A large and growing number of our clients pay us directly for the legal advice we provide them.  In all cases we take great care in assessing client needs and we will advise you from the outset as to the likely cost.  We will keep you informed of progress throughout your case and let you know immediately if we have to revise the estimate of costs that we have given you.  We will bill you at regular intervals so that you can track the costs that are being incurred on your behalf and we have a number of options for making payment, including the use of credit cards.

Legal advice can seem very expensive but we are confident that our team of leading experts provides great value for the costs incurred.

Many household and motor insurance policies include cover for legal costs. It may be worth checking the policy wording of your existing insurances before your first appointment to find out if this is an option in your case.

In some areas, we can act on legal aid, which means that the cost of your case is wholly or partly paid for from public funds. Legal aid is only available to those with limited means and with the approval of the Legal Aid Agency (the government body which runs the scheme). However, different rules apply for criminal cases, inquests, child abduction and care cases. Your solicitor will explain how the Legal Aid schemes work and whether you are eligible.

One option to pay for the costs associated with your case may be CrowdJustice (www.crowdjustice.com), the crowdfunding platform built for legal action. Crowdfunding allows you to raise money online from friends, family and other supporters of the issue at stake.

In our experience, it works best in three types of case. The first is where the costs are fairly low (for example, just for legal advice) and your, family, friends and local community are willing to make small contributions towards them. Most successful crowdfunded cases are of this type. The second type of case is where there is a much larger group of people who stand to benefit from the outcome of a case, who are in contact with each other and can organise and make larger contributions, or many contributions on a far larger scale. The third type of case are those with a very high public profile, such that the public in general will want to support it. In the second and third types of case, funds raised can be used to help you pay for some or all of your legal fees, costs associated with your case (like court fees and expert reports), and to help you cover some of the risk of paying the other side’s legal costs if you lose.

Funds raised on CrowdJustice get transferred directly to our client account on your behalf which means you do not handle the administration of payments or deal with the compliance involved in holding funds. It also means that you can tell everyone donating to your case that funds are going directly to the lawyers’ client account rather than to you. 

To find out more you can visit www.crowdjustice.com/how-it-works or email them at info@crowdjustice.com.

For businesses and other organisations, we can offer a raft of flexible funding arrangements, tailored to your needs. These range from fixed fees, to menu pricing, to banded fee arrangements.

For some cases, we may be able to offer a ‘no win, no fee’ agreement – or commonly known as a Conditional Fee Agreement. These are ways of funding a case without running the risk of facing big legal bills if you lose.

With a Conditional Fee Agreement, Bindmans would agree not to charge you if you lost your case. If you won, most of your costs would be paid by your opponent. In “publication” proceedings, if you won we would charge an additional amount which would be recoverable from your opponent.

Conditional fees are often used alongside a special insurance policy, called ‘after-the-event’ cover, which protects you from having to pay your opponent’s costs if you lose. Bindmans can advise on whether your case is suitable for a conditional fee and how to find the best insurance policy.