Why Solicitors Get Sued

It is perfectly obvious that solicitors need good professional indemnity insurance! It is generally accepted that people are smart—the fact is that as a culture, we have made great strides to simply blame some situations on dumb luck. Yet, for some weird and unexplainable reasons, some scenarios legal seem to be out of this world. They would appear to literally replace what we know as common sense in an otherwise rational individual and replace it with something that defies logic.

Out there are people who will go to great lengths in distorting and stretching their circumstances so as to take advantage of the UK legal system, many times for ludicrously high and insane sums of money.

Let’s take a look at a couple of jaw-dropping legal suits that have seen several UK solicitors get sued over what would under normal circumstances seem very trivial matters.

Not Adequate Warning about Divorce

Apparently, it would appear that it’s not everybody who understands that filing a divorce actually ends a marriage. A UK woman has actually sued her solicitors, the same ones she had contracted to file her divorce case. What are the reasons for suing them? She claims they ought to have warned her that by successfully obtaining a divorce, she would actually get divorced.

She was trying suing them for professional negligence, as they had failed to guide her that finalising the divorce proceedings would certainly bring her marriage to an end. The weird legal suit lodged against two firms already had been rejected by the court. But this only came to the light through the transcript of a subsequent appeal by the same claimant against the earlier dismissal of some other aspects concerning her case.

Odd bit is that she apparently wanted to avoid divorce and she had argued that it was the duty of the solicitors to make it plain to her that a divorce would lead to the termination of her marriage, something she wanted to avoid.

She also claimed that the law firm had failed to fully take into account her Roman Catholic faith. And that they ought to instead have recommended an alternative route like judicial separation—something that is a step away from getting a full divorce. Her faith believes in the sanctity of marriage.

Of course her law suit was thrown out finally.

Sued for Charging for Work While Actually Playing Golf

A UK solicitor is now filling a law suit against one of his own clients. The scenario is that the client was the first to sue the solicitor accusing him of charging a fee of £300 an hour on the same day when the solicitor was actually away playing golf. The property tycoon claims that his solicitor demanded in excess of £4,000 for 13.5 hours work, despite the fact that was on the golf course.

Effectively, the claimant asserts that the solicitor was not working for part of those 13.5 hours but playing golf. The claimant was so angry at the huge bill that he proceeded to plaster his own car with stickers that were accusing the solicitor of conning him.

But the solicitor has since denied fraudulently overcharging the tycoon and is in fact now suing for defamation caused by the stickers!

Negligence in Advising for Claim against Husband

Claims for negligence against solicitors are on the rise due administrative errors and poor legal advice. In this suit, somebody claimed that her solicitors were negligent regarding the terms under which they had counselled her to settle her maintenance claim against a former husband. So instead of seeking additional maintenance from her former husband, she opted to sue the solicitors for wrong advice!

No wonder solicitors need indemnity insurance!