Solicitors, like all professionals, owe their clients a duty to work to the standard of a reasonably competent practitioner. When they fall below that standard and it causes you loss, you can bring a professional negligence claim to recover what you should have had.
The three things a claim must establish
The first is usually straightforward. The work is in proving breach (what a competent solicitor should have done differently) and causation and loss (what you would have received but for the error).
What negligence looks like in a hearing loss claim
In undersettled military hearing loss claims, breaches commonly include:
- Failing to investigate and plead future losses — pension, earnings, care, equipment.
- Not instructing, or poorly instructing, an audiology or ENT expert.
- Accepting an early offer without proper advice on its adequacy.
- Failing to explain the consequences of settling, so consent wasn't informed.
- Allowing a limitation deadline to pass, forcing a weak settlement.
The same principles can apply to barristers, claims management companies and other advisers who handled your claim. If a professional's advice caused your loss, they can potentially be held responsible.
How we prove it
We obtain your previous file under your authority and reconstruct the claim as it should have been run. Often we'll instruct fresh expert evidence and, where appropriate, counsel to value the claim properly. We then compare that with what you actually received — the gap is the heart of your claim.
Who actually pays?
Solicitors are required to carry professional indemnity insurance. In practice, a successful claim is met by the former firm's insurers, not out of the individual solicitor's pocket. That's an important reassurance for veterans who feel uneasy about "suing" someone who once helped them — you are simply recovering what their insurance exists to cover.
The way damages are calculated in these cases follows a special rule called the "loss of a chance" principle, which is well worth understanding next.