Professional Indemnity Claims

Just like any person, an attorney can be sued and will be held liable to pay compensation to his/her own client if they do not prosecute the client’s case timeously or under-settles the client’s case.

If an attorney on behalf of a client fails or neglects to claim from another party within the prescribed time period which is usually 3 years, then the attorney becomes liable to compensate his/her own client for those damages the client should have received if the claim was instituted correctly and timeously.

Alternatively, you may have a situation where your attorney has badly prepared your case which has resulted in a gross under-settlement of your claim.

One such example, our firm was approached by a Road Accident Fund victim whose previous attorney settled his case for R22 000, however, he was unable to work and had a hip completely destroyed by a motor vehicle accident. Once this case was properly investigated, we established that the correct compensation should have been R3 000 000, and then proceeded to sue the attorney for this gross under-settlement and obtained the balance of compensation (less the previous settlement) from the attorney.