Professional Negligence - An Overview

Professional negligence refers to an individual who uses the services of a professional and feels like they have been let down by the professional and have suffered some kind of loss. The professional service needs to be seen as providing a service that is significantly substandard to others within their field. For professional negligence to be found, the loss must have occurred as a direct result of the service provided by the professional. Solicitors, accountants, surveyors, financial advisors, project managers, planning consultants and architects are the usual people involved in negligence, however any professional individual can be accused of professional negligence if they have provided a substandard service.

It can be difficult to claim a professional negligence case as it is a very specialist area of law with only a limited number of solicitors trained in it. If you are seeking to make a such a claim you should try to find a solicitor who has dealt with a number of professional negligence cases to ensure that you get the best representation possible.

Common claims within the this area of law include receiving bad legal advice on important matters such as wills or divorce, being miss-sold a financial product such as a pension or investment, getting bad medical advice, and complaints concerning architects. There are three stages that a claimant must go through in order to make a professional negligence claim.

Firstly they must establish a duty of care; this can be done by referring to any contract that was drawn up between the claimant and the defendant. Those offering professional services should by law draw up contracts before commencing on any work or services, so if no contract was made, they may already be liable for professional negligence.

Secondly they must establish that there has been a breach in the duty of care. This would involve the claimant providing proof that the work or service they received by the professional was below the quality that would normally be expected of a professional within their field. This can be quite hard to prove especially when the claim is based on bad advice.

Finally the claimant must prove that they suffered a loss due to the professional negligence that they experienced. This can also be very difficult to prove as the law requires solid proof that the claimant was worse off than they were before the negligence took place and that this loss was as a direct result of the negligence. You cannot make a claim against a poor service if it has just caused you disappointment, it needs to be proved that it has caused a significant loss.

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