How To Sue A Solicitor For Negligence
This guide aims to help familiarise you with how to sue a solicitor for negligence in a personal injury claim or medical negligence case.
We will begin by outlining the pre-action protocols you should comply with to begin a professional negligence claim against a personal injury or medical negligence solicitor. We will then discuss how you can collect evidence to support your claim.
Next, we will show you examples of compensation brackets that can be used when suing a solicitor for negligence. This helps give you an idea of how much your case could be worth.
Lastly, we will discuss the benefits of No Win No Fee agreements and how you can be connected with a solicitor to begin your claim today, should you be eligible.
Our advisors are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They can help you themselves by giving you free advice or by putting you in touch with a solicitor if you are eligible.
You can get in touch by:
- Telephoning on 0800 073 8804
- Filling out the Claim Online Form
- Chatting to an advisor in the live chat box.
How To Sue A Solicitor For Negligence Claims Guide
Select A Section
- How To Sue A Solicitor For Negligence
- Can I Sue A Personal Injury Solicitor For Negligence?
- Proving Your Solicitor Acted Negligently
- How Much Could I Sue A Personal Injury Solicitor For?
- Suing A Solicitor For Negligence On A No Win No Fee Basis
- Contact Us To Find Out How To Sue A Solicitor For Negligence
How To Sue A Solicitor For Negligence
This section will outline the processes involved in suing your solicitor for professional negligence.
Preliminary notice: You or your professional negligence solicitor must notify your personal injury solicitor in writing if you are considering suing them for professional negligence. They have 21 days to respond and should notify their personal indemnity insurer.
Letter of claim: This letter should outline the details of your claim, such as how much you estimate the damages to be, your timeline of events, and the parties involved from your perspective. It acts as a notice of intention to commence legal proceedings.
Letter of acknowledgement: The professional must acknowledge your letter of claim within 21 days.
Investigations by professionals: Within 90 days of sending the letter of acknowledgement, the professional should carry out their own investigation.
Response: The defendant or their legal team can choose to either send a letter of settlement or a letter of response. The letter of response should outline the defendant’s version of events, and accept or deny parts of the letter of claim.
Can I Sue A Personal Injury Solicitor For Negligence?
To claim professional negligence, you must prove that you were owed a duty of care by your solicitor and that their breaching this duty caused your case to fail or partly fail. This breach and subsequent failure are called professional negligence.
The eligibility criteria that must be met when making a professional negligence claim against a solicitor include:
- Proving that you were owed a duty of care. If a solicitor agrees to take on your case and you become their client, they instantly owe you this duty.
- Next, they breached this duty of care by providing a standard of service that fell below what would be expected of a legal professional.
- This breach caused you to lose out on the chance to pursue your claim, your claim failed, or you lost out financially.
What Is The Limitation Period For Suing A Solicitor?
For professional negligence claims, the limitation period in which you could bring forward a claim is six years. These limitations are outlined in the Limitation Act 1980.
Our advisors can help you figure out when your limitation period might have begun. If you wish to speak to an advisor, you can get in touch with them by using the contact details above.
Proving Your Solicitor Acted Negligently
Collecting evidence to prove that professional negligence occurred is an important part of any successful claim.
It will be beneficial to your case to find and show:
- Correspondence between yourself and your negligent solicitor. You should have been given a letter by your solicitor detailing why your claim is being ended.
- Copies of your case files. These files will detail your solicitor’s actions and could contain evidence of their negligence.
For help uncovering this evidence, contact an advisor who could put you in touch with one of our professional negligence solicitors if you are eligible.
How Much Could I Sue A Personal Injury Solicitor For?
There are different ways that compensation for a professional negligence claim will be calculated. Here we are looking at professional negligence claims against personal injury or medical negligence solicitors. For the professional negligence claims to be successful and you awarded the full settlement you will need to prove that your original claim would have succeeded. If you are pursuing a loss of chance claim, it may be that you are only awarded part of the value of the original claim.
Often, compensation for professional negligence claims aims to put you in the position you would have been in had your claim been successful. This means that you could be compensated by two heads of a personal injury claim: general damages and special damages.
General damages compensate for the mental and/or physical pain and suffering you experienced because of the incident.
Special damages compensate for out-of-pocket costs you have incurred because of the injury, such as loss of earnings and travel costs to medical appointments.
You are also entitled to claim 8% interest per annum from the initial claim on top of your compensation settlement.
The Judicial College Guidelines are used by our solicitors alongside the results of an independent medical assessment to calculate how much injuries are worth. Because each injury and claim is unique, the figures in the table below are guidelines only.
Compensation table
| Injury | Severity | Guideline compensation bracket | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amputation of arms | Loss of both arms (a) | £240,790 to £300,000 | The person is reduced to considerable helplessness. |
| Amputation of arms | Loss of one arm (b) (i) | Not less than £137,160 | Arm is amputated at the shoulder. |
| Hand injuries | Total and effective loss of both hands (a) | £140,660 to £201,490 | Both hands are extensively damaged and rendered little more than useless. |
| Hand injuries | (b) | £55,820 to £84,570 | A permanent cosmetic disability is caused and there is significant loss of function. |
| Knee injuries | Severe (a) (ii) | £52,120 to £69,730 | A leg fracture extending into the knee joint. It causes pain which is constant and permanent. |
| Knee injuries | Moderate (b) (i) | £14,840 to £26,190 | There is dislocation, meniscus or torn cartilage resulting in minor instability, wasting or weakness. |
| Shoulder injury | Severe (a) | £19,200 to £48,030 | Injuries associated with damage to the brachial plexus resulting in significant disability. |
| Shoulder injury | Moderate (c) | £7,890 to £12,770 | A frozen shoulder which causes limitation of movement and discomfort for about two years. |
| Wrist injuries | (d) | £6,080 to £10,350 | Recovery from a fracture or soft tissue injury takes longer than 12 months. |
| Wrist injuries | (e) | In the region of £7,430 | This will be an uncomplicated Colles’ fracture. |
Suing A Solicitor For Negligence On A No Win No Fee Basis
The solicitors at Legal Expert understand how stressful beginning a professional negligence claim can be.
That’s why if you want to proceed with suing a solicitor for negligence they can, if you are eligible, offer you a kind of No Win No Fee agreement called a Conditional Fee Agreement.
In general, under the terms of this agreement:
- You don’t have to pay to enlist your solicitor’s services.
- You do not have to pay ongoing fees as your case continues.
- If your case is unsuccessful, you will not have to pay your solicitor any money for the work they completed.
- However, if you are successful, your solicitor will deduct a small percentage of your compensation. This percentage is restricted by The Conditional Fee Agreements Order 2013, so you cannot be overcharged.
Contact Us To Find Out How To Sue A Solicitor For Negligence
If a No Win No Fee Agreement sounds like it would be beneficial for you, or if you need any more advice on any of the topics in this guide, contact an advisor.
Our advisors are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They can help you themselves or put you in touch with a solicitor if you are eligible.
You can get in touch with them by:
- Calling on 0800 073 8804
- Filling out the Claim Online Form
- Talking with an advisor in the support box.
Learn More About Professional Negligence Claims
we have provided some further reading to help you with your research.
More of our guides:
No Win No Fee Solicitors – Find The Best Lawyers Near You
External webpages:
Pre-Action Protocol for Professional Negligence – Civil Procedure Rules
SRA | Legal jargon explained | Solicitors Regulation Authority
Civil litigation | The Law Society
We hope you have found this guide on how to sue a solicitor for negligence helpful.
