‘No cure no pay’ not popular with personal injury lawyers

A gavel in a courtroom.
Photo: Depositphotos

Dutch lawyers specialising in personal injury cases have little enthusiam for the ‘no cure, no pay’ construction used in some other countries, the Financieele Dagblad reported on Monday.

Experts in the sector say the lawyers reject the system because of the large losses the law firm can incur if they lose, the paper said. Under no cure, no pay, lawyers can charge a higher hourly fee if they win the case. But they receive nothing if they lose.

The Dutch ban on no cure, no pay cases was lifted temporarily in 2014 for a five-year period. The aim was to allow people on a middle incomes more access to the law because they earned too much to qualify for subsidised legal aid, but not enough to afford lawyer’s fees.

There are some 65,000 personal injury cases related to driving in the Netherlands every year. But since the start of the experiment in 2014, only 64 cases have fallen under the no cure, no pay regulation, the FD said.

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