Professional negligence: causes and effects

Lawyers are expected to perform their duties based on their skills and expertise which include able to handle legal proceedings as provided by the relevant laws and procedures and able to advise clients properly. In Malaysia, lawyers are governed by two main statutes namely, the Legal Profession Act 1976 (Peninsular Malaysia) and the Advocates Ordinance (Sabah and Sarawak). Lawyers’ duties are not limited to clients only but also to their profession, court and public. Thus, once lawyers have agreed to accept a brief, they should exercise their duties diligently without any fear or favour. They should also properly exercise duty of care and skills and must ensure that they have adequate knowledge and expertise on the matters. In short, in order to avoid being sued for professional negligence they should always maintain their competency, dignity and professionalism. The aim of this paper is to analyse causes of professional negligence among lawyers and the effects of such act to their clients and to their profession. The study uses qualitative method that involves analysing previous court decisions and other relevant sources of laws. The result shows that in certain cases, the trial courts have ordered lawyers to pay damages to their client but the Appeal court may allow the appeal by the lawyers on certain grounds which include failure by the client or plaintiff to plead breach of duty of care and standard of care expected from the lawyers and also the claim was time-barred