M2 - Learner Manual

The Legal Service Commission of QLD provides a helpful summary of professional negligence: 

“Lawyers owe their clients a duty of care. Negligence is a failure to exercise the degree of care considered reasonable in the circumstances, resulting in financial or other loss.

Clearly, the mere fact that a lawyer fails to achieve what a client hoped to achieve with the lawyer’s advice and assistance does not, in itself, mean that the lawyer was negligent.

Equally clearly, lawyers do have a responsibility to their clients. A lawyer who fails to provide a legal service to a client with at least reasonable care and skill and whose failure causes the client to suffer a financial or other loss may well have breached his or her duty of care. The breach of that duty may amount to negligence and the client may be entitled to compensation for the loss.”[1]