CICA Claims Solicitors – Funding for Your Claim
The CICA scheme does not award legal costs as part of your claim for criminal injuries compensation. We realise that this can feel unfair to people, especially if you have experienced a violent crime, but this is the current position. What this means to you is that you are liable to pay the fees if you instruct a CICA claims solicitor, regardless of the outcome of your claim. Unfortunately you will also be liable to pay any other costs related to the claim, for example, professional reports, including statements from psychologists, consultants and any other medical reports that you need to provide as evidence.
Because you will have to pay fees for the advice you receive, it is important that your solicitor is able to handle your case efficiently and has expertise in CICA claims. Our experienced team will treat you with compassion and we recognise the distress you have already experienced. We also understand the details of the CICA tariffs (awards) system and we will give you clear advice. If there is a risk that your claim is likely to be too small to make it worth paying a solicitor, we will tell you and we’ll guide you to other sources of support. No client wants a legal bill that is almost the same size as their compensation payment.
If the tariff for your claim is likely to be high enough to cover the fee of a solicitor then our CICA claim specialists will be pleased to advise you. Clients praise us for our experience in making Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority claims but, more importantly, they value our sensitive approach. We pride ourselves on focusing on work where we can make a real difference to the value of your claim. It’s important to mention here that we will need to talk to you about the crime you suffered, whether that involves physical or sexual abuse, violence or emotional abuse and we appreciate that this might be difficult for you. When we work with CICA clients who have serious complex injuries, we can make a big difference to their outcomes. However, these cases typically require specialist evidence so we will not take on your case unless we think that it will significantly increase your compensation. You will see examples of the way our solicitors help clients with CICA claims in our criminal injuries compensation case studies.
We also recognise that clients are likely to have financial difficulties after a serious injury. An attack of any sort will leave you feeling traumatised and you might find counselling helpful. For both physical and mental health reasons, many of our clients have experienced difficulties with employment after their injury. In some more serious cases, they have had to adapt their home. To make life easier for you we will discuss options to ease any financial worries. We can delay the payment of our fees until your CICA claim has been concluded and ask the other experts to defer payment for their reports until you receive your compensation.
If you would like to talk to us about your situation, you can call us on (0115) 931 51 71 or send us an email. We will listen to your situation and help you explore the best way to move forward.
