Where does the information on this site come from?

From primary sources: legislation, court rules, regulator publications and judgments. Every guide lists the sources it relies on at the foot of the page, each linked to the source itself so you can check it. We do not rely on other websites' summaries.

How often is the content reviewed?

Every guide shows the date it was last reviewed and the date the next review is due. We re-check numeric claims — percentages, caps and limitation periods — at least twice a year, and immediately when a statute, court rule or appellate decision changes the position.

How we research these guides

Q: What happens when you get something wrong?

We correct the page and publish the correction on our corrections log, with the date, what was wrong, what the page says now and how the error got through. We do not quietly edit pages.

Every rule on this site comes from the legislation, court rule or regulator publication itself, is linked so you can check it, and carries the date we last read it. This page sets out exactly how that works, including where it has failed.

1. Primary sources only

A rule is taken from the source that creates it — an Act, a statutory instrument, a Civil Procedure Rule, a state bar rule, a regulator’s own publication, or the judgment that decided the point. We do not take rules from other law firms’ websites, from encyclopedias, or from search engines’ generated answers.

This matters more than it sounds. The commonly repeated online description of the UK success fee cap is imprecise, and a widely quoted California fee scale was repealed in 2023 but is still reproduced across the web. Both errors were in earlier versions of this site, and both came from restating the consensus instead of reading the statute.

2. Jurisdiction is decided first

Every page states the jurisdiction it covers before anything else, and says where a rule does not apply. We do not describe an England-and-Wales rule as “UK law”: QOCS, the Conditional Fee Agreements Order 2013 and the Fatal Accidents Act 1976 do not extend to Scotland, which has its own regime under the Civil Litigation (Expenses and Group Proceedings) (Scotland) Act 2018. Nor do we present one state’s contingency fee rules as the US position.

3. Everything is dated

Each source carries the date we last opened it and, where it matters, the date the rule took effect. Each page carries the date it was last reviewed and when the next review falls due. A page never shows a review date unless a review actually happened on that date — a blanket date applied across a whole site is a false freshness signal and hides exactly the drift it appears to rule out.

4. Legal review

UK guides are reviewed by Edward & Amaury Solicitors, Solicitors regulated by the SRA (no. 800525) — verifiable on the SRA register.

US guides have not yet completed independent legal review, and every US page says so. We would rather state the gap than imply a review that has not happened. See who writes and checks this site for the current position.

5. Review schedule

Monthly: scan legislation.gov.uk, Civil Procedure Rule updates, SRA publications and state bar rule amendments for changes affecting fees.
Twice yearly: re-verify every numeric claim — percentages, caps, limitation periods — against the primary source.
Annually: every page reviewed and re-dated, whether or not it changed.
On any change: a statutory instrument, appellate decision or regulator change affecting fees triggers immediate review of the affected pages and an entry in the corrections log.

6. Who publishes this, and why it matters

This site is published by Edward & Amaury Solicitors (Edward & Amaury Ltd, company no. 12195443), a firm of solicitors regulated by the SRA under number 800525. The firm takes personal injury, mis-selling and civil litigation work, some of it funded by conditional fee agreements — the arrangements these guides explain. That is a real commercial interest and we disclose it on every page rather than describing ourselves as independent.

We do not sell leads, run a panel, take referral fees or rank other firms. Where we point readers toward advice, we link only to directories run by the Law Society, the Law Society of Scotland, the Law Society of Northern Ireland and the ABA, none of which pay us anything.

7. Corrections

Substantive corrections are published on the corrections log with the date, what was wrong, what the page says now, and how the error got through. Report anything you think is wrong to editorial@no-win-no-fee.com.