Professional negligence happens when a trained individual fails to deliver reasonable standards, resulting in damage or loss for their client. All professionals have a duty of care to their clients to ensure the advice and service they give does not negatively impact a client’s wellbeing or financial situation.

Although professional bodies, industry qualifications and continual training attempt to combat professional negligence in all fields, plenty of professional negligence claims are made each year across the UK and all over the world.

Professional negligence can occur when professionals attempt to answer questions outside of their expertise or pass on a piece of work that is too challenging to a junior team member or are too busy to deal with your case effectively. Often, teams may be spread too thin and forget to ask questions crucial in understanding your situation. As a result, nonfactual advice and obvious errors may start to appear, while a heavy workload might mean your project isn’t prioritised when it needs to be.

Professional negligence claims can be aimed at almost any professional that advises in a specialist field. If a professional is responsible for giving advice , they are expected to perform to a reasonable standard and deliver a duty of care to their clients. For this reason, accountants, barristers, solicitors, engineers, valuers, surveyors, consultants, architects and financial advisors can all come under scrutiny in professional negligence claims.

You should think about making a claim if a professional service has negatively affected you. You’ll likely have grounds for this claim if you have evidence to support it and if you can prove that the advice you received goes against the consensus of other professionals in the field.

If you believe you have fallen victim to professional negligence, you should speak to a specialist solicitor as soon as possible to see if you have a case. Professional negligence claims have a better likelihood of success if they can prove loss or damages. So, don’t wait too long before taking legal action — a solicitor may ask for recent copies of a contract and other documents relating to your case, as well as photographic or video evidence if you have it.