Until recently, you depended on the judgment of your legal assistance insurer to be reimbursed for the costs of a lawyer of your choice. The policy usually stipulated that it should be “necessary” to engage that lawyer. If your legal expenses insurer did not consider it “necessary” (for example because it employed lawyers herself), you could choose between paying your preferred lawyer or settling for the lawyer of your insurer.

Conflict of interest
Especially if you have a dispute with an insurer, it can be annoying that another insurer (or sometimes even the same insurer) represents your interests. But also in other cases you may prefer your own lawyer. If only for the travel distance, the speed of action and / or the specialism of the lawyer of your preference.

Lawyer or not, lawyer for the insurer?
Not all cases require the assistance of a lawyer. For example, non-lawyers may also act as legal representatives in the subdistrict and administrative courts. According to the insurers, there was soon no question of a “necessity” to hire a lawyer of your choice for such a procedure. When the legal aid insurers also hired lawyers themselves and the subdistrict court started to deal with “larger” cases, this “necessity” was of course even less likely to be accepted. In practice, you often had to deal with a lawyer or lawyer employed by your insurer, even if you actually did not want to.

European Court of Justice determines right to free choice of lawyer
With this state of affairs, the European Court of Justice on 7 November 2013 (case C-442/12) put an end to this. The Court of Appeal, relying on Directive 87/344 EEC and the Financial Supervision Act, ruled that if a litigant with legal expenses insurance has a dispute that requires litigation, he must always be able to engage a lawyer of his choice at the expense of the insurer, even if assistance from a lawyer is not mandatory.

Already being dealt with by (the lawyer or lawyer of) your insurer
In most cases, you could have a case that had already been handed over to a lawyer of your legal assistance insurer handled by a lawyer of your choice at a later stage. It was also almost always possible to request a ‘second opinion’ from a lawyer of your choice at the expense of your insurer. The aforementioned judgment of the European Court of Justice confirms this once again.

Finally
Please note that most policy conditions state that a “case” must first be registered with your legal expenses insurer before you instruct a lawyer of your choice. In addition, most insurers exclude various “types” of cases from coverage. As a rule, proceedings in family law and disputes between business partners are not reimbursed at all. In most cases cases that do qualify for reimbursement have a maximum amount to be reimbursed for attorney’s fees.

If you are not eligible for an addition, we will charge an hourly rate of € 200.00 – € 225.00 excluding office costs (6%) and excluding VAT. This hourly rate is exclusive of costs, such as court fees, and exclusive of third-party costs (such as bailiff’s fees).

If your income and assets remain below certain limits, you may be eligible for government-funded legal aid, a so-called addition. This used to be called “pro bono”. If an addition is issued, you will in principle pay a one-off contribution towards the attorney’s fees (be careful in the case of a laborious case). The remaining part of the attorney’s fees is paid by the Legal Aid Board. The amount that you pay during the first interview is set off against the personal contribution if an addition is granted. With an addition, you may also qualify for reduced court fees and reduced bailiff costs. Addition of extra attention Please bear in mind that if you acquire capital as a result of the outcome of a procedure, it will be examined again (i.e. afterwards) whether you were actually entitled to the addition and therefore also the reduced court fee and costs of the debt collector. It may therefore be that due to the outcome of the procedure, you will still have to pay the attorney’s costs per hour and the full court fee and the full bailiff’s costs afterwards. For further information you can consult the website of the Legal Aid Board: www.rvr.org or you can call the Legal Counter, 0900 –80 20. Conditions for an addition Whether you are eligible for an addition depends, among other things, on your annual income, savings and living situation. The amounts used by the Legal Aid Board in its assessment change every year. You can read these amounts and the other conditions for an addition here.