This is a collaborative post: If you are a business manager, or an individual who has required the services of a solicitor, then you will expect the work you receive to be the expected standard. The last thing you want to happen is to have your solicitor not put any effort into a case you’re working on, or represent you in certain business transactions.
As you can imagine, it can be frustrating to lose out on business or a personal case due to poor work being conducted. When situations like this happen, you will want to seek compensation for your losses. The process can be a tiring one and one that’s difficult to fully comprehend, which is why you shouldn’t go through this alone.
It is unlikely that a professional lawyer will put in shoddy work, but it isn’t impossible that they will fail in their duty of care. You will be fully within your right to seek reparations. The rest of this article will explain what counts as legal negligence, and what steps you need to take.
What Counts As Legal Negligence?
Any professional solicitor working in different fields will be able to engage in a negligent case. If they have not performed well at their role or failed in their duty of care, this will be legal negligence. It could also be that they’ve provided poor legal advice or did not inform you of transactions you’ve paid for that were their responsibility. For example, your lawyer may have failed to spot fraud within their work, which means you have suffered a major loss in finances and had your reputation decreased.
If you have suffered a loss from this, then legal negligence will quickly develop into a legal negligence claim. Some areas of legal practice that could lead to claims against the solicitor include:
- Medical negligence solicitors
- Business solicitors
- Employment solicitors
- Will writers
- Property conveyancing
- Commercial solicitors
This is only the tip of the iceberg, with many more industries being mentioned here. All solicitors working in any industry will be accountable for their actions, so if you’ve been the victim of negligence, you should find a specialist who can advise you on what you should do next to seek compensation.
Finding The Right Representation
A major part of the process of seeking compensation for a negligence case, is to find yourself some representation. This will involve you searching around to find the right lawyer to represent you against the solicitor in question. As such, you should prepare some questions to ask these lawyers so that you know how experienced they are and what they can offer you.
If they are experienced, you may be able to find out about previous cases they’ve handled and how much they earned for their clients. At the end of the day, this lawyer will be with you to help put you at ease and explain what is going on without complicating things, so you should meet with them beforehand or speak to them online. You will be able to find out if they can offer you a service or if they’ve worked with anyone on a case such as yours before.
Since you will have suffered a negative experience with legal professionals, it is likely you will be wary of working with another solicitor. This is why you should search for experts who operate within the legal negligence sector and have lots of experience. Hugh James are professional negligence solicitors who understand a negligent solicitor’s impact on an individual or business. You can feel trusted working with these experts, as they are highly recommended in their field, and they allow you to view testimonials from previous clients.
Differences Between A Complaint And Claim
When you have an issue with a solicitor, it will be important to realise the difference between a complaint and a claim. In most cases, it’s likely that the two will go hand in hand with your situation. If you are dissatisfied with the case that your solicitor has handled, or you’re not happy with the price you’ve been billed, then the first step will be to complain to the firm dealing with you.
It’s important that you complain to them as soon as possible and that you are clear on the issue that you’ve gone through and what you want to happen as a result. It is recommended that you allow up to eight weeks for a response from them before moving on to stake a claim for your case.
Even if you have received a response from this firm, you may not have been happy with the response or the action that they are taking. In situations like this, and when you have been ignored, your next step will be to contact the Legal Ombudsman, who is appointed by the Office for Legal Complaints to help resolve complaints about lawyers in an effective way. They can assist with any matters involving poor communication, issues with payments or money in general, and deal with any loss of documents.
Your complaint will be able to evolve into a claim if you’ve had a financial loss occur due to a solicitor not meeting the expecting standard or breaching their duty. It is more likely that your claim will have more success and have merit if there has been a complaint beforehand. With that said, you should still remember that claims and complaints are separate from each other. As an individual looking to complain about the service, it can seem confusing due to the murky grey area of the law that can be difficult to comprehend. This is, again, why you should contact specialist negligence solicitors who can provide you with advice at any stage you find yourself.
The Cost Of A Claim
If you have read all of this and believe that you have a claim coming your way, you should be aware of what this will cost you. The most common practice within the industry is that you won’t pay for a service if your case fails to result in a win. This means you will only pay your solicitors for their work if they are successful. This is because they will only take on your case if they believe you should win, so it comes at a cost to themselves if they fail to prove it.
If applicable, there will be different ways to fund your claim in the short term. The most popular way is to do this privately, which involves paying an hourly rate. However, you should be aware that the costs here could go high, which is what turns to people using a Conditional Fee Agreement, also known as a CFA. This is a more modern version of the classic ‘no win, no fee’ line, but it can be more defined case by case.
In some rarer cases, there will be charities you can contact, or government sources, who can help you with funding a case. Of course, this is more likely for those with financial or social issues and more unlikely for businesses. It’s worth speaking to your negligence lawyer specialist, as they may be able to point you in the right direction for funding.