Hello
My mate recently had an accident yesterday with an uninsured driver pulling out on him. Entirely the drivers fault as he wasn’t looking before he pulled out.
Anyway my mate is going to be using the legal cover provided by his insurance but I know they aren’t very good. If anyone has any good experiences with any solicitors Id appreciate the information, so I can forward it to him as he’s a exhausted from the accident.
You could give White Dalton a call, check out their website…most if not all the solicitors are bikers or ex bikers!!
Most ‘no win, no fee’ lawyers will not take a case without insurance.
Your friend is probably screwed.
Whose his legal cover with?
My legal cover was with Shoosmiths and they were brill in dealing with my claim 
Try T.C. from this very forum. 
I would definately recommend White Dalton.
I’m using them at the moment for what is going to be one very long case. But I tell you something, they don’t miss a trick. And are straight down the line right from the start re charges etc
Worth a call.
Im using Handley Brown Solicitors via www.britishbikeclaims.co.uk - ran by bikers for bikers, I didnt think I would be getting paid out at all for my accident and they’ve really helped me out massively, always available to speak to, whenever I call Im put straight through to my solictor - no messing about with call notes or references they are just on the ball from the off.
The company that Bikesure provided me with originally were useless, sacked them off & I found out about these people on Gixerjunkies as Tom from British Bike Claims is a regular on there and has helped out loads of the riders on there in the past sucessfully, the best bit is that they’ve never lost a case since they’ve been going. If you call and speak to Tom he’ll let you know whats what, really nice bloke and no pressure.
Up to you who you use but you wont be dissapointed with these 
+1 for White Dalton. I’ve used them in the past and they took the other side apart.
Despite having not had to use them, (Thank F*CK!) id recomend white dalton from all the other recomendations ive seen elsewhere…
im using white dalton at the moment.i won`t go in to detail but they manage to get an intetrime payment from a insurance company that as yet are not liable,but will be after the police get certain people into court.they are very clever people.
Was your mate injured?
If the accident involved an uninsured driver then the cliam will have to be made against the MIB and you need a specialist law firm, and not every firm is authorised as an MIB claimant law firm.
Feel free to PM me and I will be happy to either call you for a chat or you can call me.
It must depend which claim handler. I used them for an accident on my scooter in 2007 and they were absolutely cr@p. Just terrible. I had 3 different claim handlers and the stuff is only now settling. I would certainly not recommend them.
I know of half a dozen or so former Shoosmiths Solicitors, and even they say they are cr@p.
Trouble is that they are like most LEI panel law firms, the client simply becomes a number and each fee earner is allocated a maximum period of time to work on the file, and it is not a great deal of time at that, so cases simply do not get investigated properly and they tend to go for the quick settlements as they need to get their fees paid and cash in quickly.
That was exactly my feeling.
Many times I thought of getting a different firm to act, but with Carol Nash being as helpful as a turd, I couldn’t get the energy to fight it.
For that reason, I didn’t take legal cover with my current insurance company.
As we’ve got a solicitor here now, maybe you can answer this. I was always wondering, can you get legal cover insurance outside your main insurance policy? I know if you have a strong case, there’s plenty no-win-no-fee companies that would take your case, but if you have a case like the above, with an un-insured driver, what do you do? In that case I assume it’s useful to have some legal cover?
Firstly, legal expenses insurance of any type is the biggest con going. You pay on average of between £25 - £30 per vehicle or premium and the insurers know thatn the majority will never use it, so they (the insurers) pocket million of pounds extra profit.
Those that do use it will have a panel solicitor appointed who may be at the opposite end of the country and may not have any specialist knowledge, and in fact just recently insurers have been auctioning off cases to the highest bidders within their own panels.
The panel solicitors will then work for a reduced fee which is why many appoint a legal executive or paralegal to deal with “Your” case and the chances are you will never have contact other than by way of occasional letter.
These firms are then under pressure to settle quickly so that they can get their fees in. In the case of Accident Management firms, although they will pass the case onto a law firm, all they want is the money they can make from hiring a bike to you.
But I digress. Back to LEI firms, because they are under pressure to settle quickly, your case is often substantially undervalued by up to two thirds of the real value because very few members of the public have any idea what their case is worth and therefore are none the wiser.
As an example, I have just reviewed a case where a chap was taken out whilst riding his bike in South London. He suffered a brain injury along with other horrific injuries and the short of it is that he will never work again.
His partner activated his legal expenses insurance and a law firm in Manchester was appointed on the instructions of the insurance company.
Over the next three years no offer was made to obtain an interim payment, no statements were obtained and the Police report was never applied for.
24 hours before limitation expired,they issued proceedings in Manchester for a London based rider who had his accident in London. The defendant is also from London, but because proceedings were issued in Manchester, both parties would be required to travel to Manchester for the hearing.
The original solicitors were looking at selling for about £100,000 and accept 75% liability.
To cut a long story short, we were asked by the riders partner to take over the case and we found that apart from them having done nothing, they had billed the insurers for over £100,000 which is the limit of the funding and simply cash had run out.
The case is not worth £100,000. It is worth about £7.5 million and we are prepared to accept 25% contributory negligence which is somewhat different to the 75% the other firm were prepared to accept. This figure of £7.5 million is after accepting 25% contrib.
Now, the point of this little tale is that had he been put onto a conditional fee agreement (no win no fee) from the start with a non panel law firm, the funding does not run out as all the fees are claimed back at the conclusion of the case, he could have chosen his own law firm from the outset, and he could have ensured that he had a specialist.
Then we can look at it from a slightly different perspective.
If you have an accident that is clearly your fault, your insurance will pick up the tab for any injury or damage caused to another, end of!!!
If the accident is not your fault, or there is a suspicion it is not your fault, then you can go onto a conditional fee agreement (no win no fee) with a specialist local firm of your choice, and you get individual treatment rather than being part of the conveyor belt that you will join as part of your LEI.
No win no fee costs the claimant nothing. When the case is won, you will get 100% of your award, your law firm will get their fees paid by the other side together with their disbursments (out of pocket costs) as well as the after the event insurance premium which is taken out on your behalf to protect you in the event that you lose your case and avoids any nasty financial surprises.
Bear in mind that legal aid for personal injury accidents was replaced with the conditional fee agreement in order to make legal representation accessible to all regardless of background or how much youi earn or have in the bank.
Because the no win no fee firm is using their own money, they tend to be more professional, more focused and will fight your corner to the nth degree as they can also get an uplift on their costs which is called a success fee, so there is a vested interest to do the best they can for you, where an LEI firm will get paid win or lose and so really don’t give a stuff.
The same principle applies for uninsured claims against the MIB. The claims are submitted in exactly the same way as it is against the drivers insurers, but there are certain protocols which have to be strictly adhered, for example the MIB have to be listed as the second defendant when proceedings are issued.
MIB claims are also usually fixed fee and for this reason not every law firm, particularly LEI firms, have MIB specilaists, but MIB claims can also be handled on a no win no fee basis.
I always insist that legal expenses insurance is removed from any of my policies, and in fact only a few weeks ago I was talking to a friend of mine whho deals with insurance, and he openly admitted that the insurers see LEI as a quick way of making lots of additional money with very little risk.
Hope this goes some way to answering your question.
In short then, is LEI only useful if you are at fault in an accident and injure someone or cause damage to someone’s vehicle / property?
No point even for blameworthy accidents, after all what do you pay your insurance premiums for? Third party cover which is the minimum requirement covers exactly that, injury or damage to a third party, and if you know you are at fault you are hardly likely to contest it, and if you damage yourself or your own bike, insurance won’t cover you unless you are comprehensive.
Thanks. That’s a very comprehensive answer!
I always assumed the No-win-no-fee companies were only interested in “obvious” or “easy” cases mainly where there’s an injury claim. But from what you are saying it sounds like they would take on more difficult cases too?
For example, if you would have an accident while filtering. I understand that this usually end up with a 50/50 or 30/70 or something. Would a no-win-no-fee firm still take such a case on?
Every firm has to carry out a risk assesment before it takes on a case as that helps determine what the success fee will be, but unlike the criminal courts where it has to be proven beyond all reasonable doubt, in civil law you only have to show on the balance of probability and that need only be 51%.
We specialise in filtering cases, and personally? I love them. Up until 2006, every insurance company and defendant law firm used to quote Powell v Moody (1966) which found 100% in favour of the car driver. However in 2006 we got Davis v Schrogin which found 100% in favour of the filtering motorcyclist, and provided the evidence is sound there is absolutely no reason why the filtering rider should be held liable, but the case has to be judged on its merits.
50/50 is no longer really an option, depending on the circumstances, and this is the crux, was the filter legal and if you look in the Q & A section, I have covered this in some detail.
I have even had a few undertaking cases recently where I have won 100% 
The no win no fee firms are more likely to accept your case than a legal expenses insurer, but there are also those no win no fee firms who will only take on the easily winable cases or those that need minimum work.
We specialise in and relish catastrophic difficult cases, or those cases where the rider has been told to sod off, we love the challenge of proving others wrong;)
Rider Support helped me when I needed advice about my claim.
The un-insured driver should be hung, drawn and quatred in my opinion!! 
