Professional Negligence Solicitors

In simple terms, professional negligence is when a professional you have instructed to work with fails to perform their duties to the required standards or breaches a duty of care. The professional’s negligence would result in you suffering a loss.

A professional could be a solicitor, an accountant, an investment manager or any other professional who had been instructed to act for you on a formal basis.

If you think the professional you worked with was negligent in providing their service, and may have failed you, you can contact us to discuss your claim.

Sometimes professionals can make mistakes. Such mistakes can cause problems for their clients, causing financial loss amongst other issues.

When such a dispute arises, it is known as ‘professional negligence’.

If you have been affected by mistakes made by a professional, our highly experienced professional negligence team can assist you. We have assisted with claims against professionals such as:

• architects;
• accountants;
• barristers;
• estate agents;
• solicitors;
• surveyors; and
• insurance brokers.

When you instruct a professional, they will provide you with a written agreement. This would be in compliance with the law as well as any professional body rules and regulation, i.e. the contract. As a result, the dispute between the parties would be judged based on this contract.

Professionals owe a duty of care to their clients, which is why you can pursue a claim for breach of contract and negligence.

The head of Freeman Harris’s Professional Negligence Department, Avi Gordon, has:

• Acted in a multi-million-pound professional negligence claim against a private client solicitor arising out of the negligent drafting of a will.
• Acted in a multi-million-pound professional negligence claim against a City law firm arising from their failure to issue a Claim Form prior to the limitation period expiring resulting in the clients losing their very valuable claim against a large bank.
• Obtained judgment in the client’s favour following a complex preliminary issue trial against the client’s previous solicitor in the Senior Courts Costs Office in respect of the unlawful termination of a Conditional Fee Agreement (see Karis Developments Ltd v EMW Law LLP [2020] 1 WLUK 19).
• Acted in a multi-million professional negligence claim against a Silver Circle law firm arising out of negligent advice in relation to an After the Event insurance policy.
• Acted for Karis Developments Limited in its £18 million negligence claim against Howard Kennedy LLP arising out of their drafting of a large-scale development agreement with a local authority.
• Acted in a multi-million-pound claim against a law firm arising from their numerous failures (including but not limited to costs budgeting and disclosure) which ultimately resulted in the client’s substantial claim against a large bank being struck out.
• Acted in a large professional negligence claim against a well-known family law practice in respect of their negligent failure to enforce a multi-million-pound maintenance order against the client’s ex-husband by issuing proceedings under the wrong procedure resulting in those proceedings subsequently being struck out with the client being ordered to pay a six-figure sum in adverse costs and no recovery under the maintenance order.
• Acted in a professional negligence claim against a law firm arising out of their negligent failure to name the correct party on a Claim Form.

If you have received a poor service from a professional, it is worth making a claim if you have incurred a loss. These losses need to be assessed and valued, so your claim can be calculated.

The purpose of a professional negligence claim is to assess the financial value of the loss you have suffered from, and to put you in the position that you would have been in if the professional wasn’t negligent in providing their service.

An example of this would be a Financial Advisor giving his client factually incorrect information, which resulted in the client losing a large amount of money.

It is difficult to say if your professional negligence claim will end up in court. We will aim to discuss and explain the process of making a professional negligence claim once you contact us.