There are always potential risks associated with taking court action. Most courts and tribunals are authorised to instruct you to pay the other party's costs (ie the defendant's costs) if your case is unsuccessful.

While there is a real risk, it is important to remember that being ordered to pay the other party's costs is only made in a small percentage of cases. This risk occurs in all litigation.

You can be assured that your case will be continually monitored and assessed to ensure you are not exposed to an unreasonable risk of having to pay the other party's costs.

Slater & Gordon is committed to providing you with clear and complete information about your likely legal costs before you commit to taking any court action. We will explain, discuss and negotiate legal costs with you before starting your claim.

Nevertheless, it can be difficult to predict whether a case will settle early or proceed to a court hearing. Some court hearings can be short and others lengthy. If we cannot predict the likely direction your matter will take, we will provide you with information about the potential costs at each stage of your matter. Statistically, the overwhelming majority of cases settle before going to court.

It is likely that you will be required to contribute towards ‘disbursements’ or out-of-pocket expenses that we incur on your behalf. Some typical examples of disbursements include:

• A doctor's fee for providing a medical report
• Stamp duty costs
• Court fees payable for registering an action.

The precise amount of your legal costs will vary depending on a number of factors including the work performed to prepare your matter, its complexity and the stage at which it is resolved.

In many successful cases a percentage of your legal costs - often a high percentage - may be recovered from the other party.

There are many different ways to calculate legal fees. Fees may be decided using an agreed hourly rate (usually for family law or commercial litigation matters) or by using official court scales or other statutory scales (for some personal injury matters) which set out what should be charged for a particular task.

So that you have a clear understanding of legal costs, before we start work on your behalf we will explain to you in detail:

• How we calculate our fees
• The likely costs involved to prepare and run your case
• Any additional costs that may be incurred
• Any costs that may be recoverable from, or payable by you to the other party.