Reliance on legal advice: Difference between revisions

Folks, it’s like this: If you choose to get [[legal advice]], but it’s wrong, and you rely on it, and you end up [[Breach of contract|breaching your contract]] [[Causation|causing]] your client a [[loss]], the answer is ''not'' to [[Disclaimer|disclaim]] your liability to your client: ''it is to sue your lawyer''. That’s what you pay the blighters for: so they, and that juicy [[professional indemnity insurance]] policy they never seem to claim on, will cover your poor, huddled self if the advice they give you makes a bish of things. By paying your lawyer’s bill you are paying your little portion of her insurance premium for doing you wrong. Why let her off?

In any case, think about it from your client’s perspective. If you bugger up, the client loses money, and there you are not only refusing to make your own client good but also giving your own ([[Q.E.D.]] negligent) lawyers off their own hook (to you) and then you ask the client to wear it, then:

*''You will still have a pissed-off client''. Make no mistake about that. They will think you are a moron. They may withdraw their business. This undermines the [[commercial imperative]]. The commercial imperative is the main thing in your business.

*You are letting the actually delinquent party – your lawyer – off [[scot-free]]: your client can hardly sue your lawyer for (legally [[privilege|privileged]]) advice it gave ''you'', can it?<ref>One of the pages and pages of disclaimers and exclusions in their opinion is bound to be third party claims under the [[Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999]], right?</ref>

*You are therefore leaving your beloved client – who is also, let us not forget, the actual, ''innocent'' party – high and dry and without any legal recourse against ''anyone'' and letting your lawyer laugh it all the way to the bank. ''A grand an hour charge-out rates, right?''

Furthermore, this incentivises you to get ([[cheapest to deliver]]) legal advice ''all the time'', since every [[email]], file note or memo, however misconceived or dunder-headed, functions like some kind of cloak of [[mithril]], protecting you from all pecuniary harm, at the same time parking all questions as to your culpability in arranging the advice, such as “was the legal ''advice'' [[negligent]], or were ''you'' [[negligent]], in the way you chose to frame it, implement it, or even understand it?