A dual-qualified barrister and solicitor in Northern Ireland has secured the backing of a British insurance firm to offer his clients in the North “absolute financial protection” in the event of their case being lost.
The “risk-free” insurance product is currently on offer only to clients in the North and will guarantee that they do not have to pay any costs in the event of a loss.
Paul Kearney (pictured) has practised for ten years as a barrister and ten years as a solicitor. He says this double experience is what prompted a UK insurance firm to back him offering the new product.
Personal injury
Kearney Law Group has just opened offices in Derry and Belfast, specialising in the areas of criminal law, personal injury and medical and dental negligence and led by lead solicitor-advocate Paul Kearney.
He describes this new product as an “after-the-event” insurance policy.
“This product is exclusive to my law firm and no one else in the North has anything like this. That’s the capture point,” he said.
He predicts that other solicitors will try to follow him into this market.
'Emerging market'
“I am spotting the emerging market,” he says.
“There is no financial benefit to me,” he says. “I didn’t pay any fees to be able to offer this, nor did I receive any fees from the policy.”
The majority of Kearney’s work is in personal injury, criminal law and judicial review.
“I have a strong working knowledge of those areas of law and I’m able to assess the merits of a case in a very, very refined way, and I can answer very quickly whether or not a case has got merit.
'Delegated authority'
“I made some contact with various insurance brokers in England and we managed to create a policy which gives me unconditional delegated authority to grant insurance in a case.
“I am the gatekeeper of the policy and I have to stand over my decisions in relation to that."
If a client wins their case, they pay a small premium at the end, which is deducted from their damages. If they lose, there is no fee at all.
Discretion
“The insurance policy is a contract between me and the provider, and the client is the beneficiary of that. It’s entirely at my discretion but I have contractual obligations to the provider so I would never risk insuring a weak case,” he says.
He describes the initiative as akin to a “private version of legal aid”, except there is no income test.
Kearney says the insurers have unconditional confidence in his judgment in assessing each case as he sees fit without reporting back.
“This gives me a wide range and allows me to operate at a very accelerated rate.
“I can move at lightning speed,” he says.
Kearney sees the product as a market reaction to erosions in public funding for those trying to get access to justice.
“Legal aid and public funding are woven into the fabric of our society so deeply in Northern Ireland that this is something which is a necessity rather than a luxury,” he says.