Practice area Expertise Professional Liability
Lawyers, civil law notaries and other independent professionals increasingly face claims for (personal) liability. The duty of care of service providers becomes ever more specific. To boot, the claim awareness of (former) clients grows. For these reasons, most independent professionals have taken out professional liability insurance, whether or not mandatory. Our Professional Liability Team can provide you with legal assistance in this highly specialist area of expertise.In appraising liability issues, it is important to establish whether there has been a violation of a duty of care. Has the professional really made an error? Did the professional give adequate warning that there could be certain risks? There are no clear-cut answers to these questions. Our firm’s full-service character enables us to look at issues from all legal angles. Just as important is the property situation, had the alleged error not been made; after all, there must be a causal connection between the error and the alleged loss. Additional relevant factors are the claimant’s fault and the applicability and specifics of the service provider’s standard terms and conditions.
Raising a defence calls for more than legal expertise and the financial consequences of claims. The human factor and professional pride play major roles as well: (personal) claims affect a person’s essence, qualities and integrity. This is why when handling cases we carefully weigh all interests at stake to determine the appropriate route.
Our Clients
Our clients include lawyers/legal professionals, civil law notaries, insolvency practitioners, (insurance) brokers and intermediaries, tax consultants, accountants, bailiffs, assessors and valuers, and their insurers. We also represent engineers and architects and their insurers in technical professional liability issues. We counsel insurers on disputes over coverage and the drafting of policies and policy terms.
The Team
The Professional Liability Team comprises eight lawyers from the Liability, Loss & Insurance Practice who have many years of experience advising and litigating in professional liability and disciplinary cases. By joining our multidisciplinary knowledge and expertise we can work fast and effectively.
We frequently give lectures on the duty of care and liability of lawyers and civil law notaries. We also regularly publish contributions on these subjects in the professional literature and on our knowledge platform dirkzwager.nl. By keeping abreast of the latest developments in professional liability we can always keep you up to date.
More Information
Would you like to learn more about our Professional Liability Team or would you like to schedule an appointment? Please contact Daan Baas, at +31 (0)26 353 83 74 or baas@dirkzwager.nl. For the contact details of the other team members and their specialisations within the professional liability field, please go to their respective profiles on our website.