Professional negligence

Professional Negligence Claims

When a professional lets you down it can have a serious impact upon your life and it usually causes you to lose out financially. Where do you turn?

We believe that it is essential that we build up a rapport with you in the first meeting, so that you have the trust and confidence in us to help you. Accordingly, we offer a free, initial consultation by phone to talk through your issues with no obligation on your part.

All our team are experienced lawyers who have litigated, and still do, in many areas of law such as construction, disputes between directors and product liability, so that we have all worked with other professionals in their roles as experts in the case and as a result, fully understand the various professional duties and responsibilities.

We consider that this broad experience and knowledge gives our team members the edge, as they are better able to advise you on whether the professional in your case has been negligent.

Our experience includes claims against:

• Solicitors & Barristers

• Accountants

• Directors (the claim is generally made against the company)

• Financial Advisors

• Architects

• Surveyors

• Estate Agents

For claims against medical practitioners or Health Trusts, please see our separate Clinical Negligence section on the website.

Proving Negligence

Professional negligence is more than just a poor service. Poor service is dealt with by the specific Ombudsman in the field.

To prove professional negligence, you must demonstrate that the professional fell below the standards of a reasonably competent professional in the same discipline.

Accordingly, it is not necessarily negligent for a professional to give you advice which later turns out to be wrong, or does not give the best outcome, as long as:

• the advice meets the standard of care and competence expected objectively and not just by the person affected and,

• generally, that the professional has fully explained the options and risks.

It is not a straightforward area of law which is why we only have fully qualified staff in the team.

Proving Loss

At the outset we try and establish what claimable losses have been suffered. The losses have to be proved and critically, that these losses were as a clear consequence of the negligence and were reasonably foreseeable.

There is also a duty on the Claimant to mitigate loss. This means that the Claimant must take all reasonable steps to reduce their own losses. So, for example, if a professional makes a clear and obvious mistake but after that mistake, the loss could be prevented if the professional were allowed put matters right but is not allowed to, this could well result in any claimable losses being limited.

For more information on professional negligence, how we can help, how claims can be funded or just a general initial discussion, please get in touch.