Our Expertise

Professional Negligence

Winners of Professional Negligence Set of the Year (2023) at the Who’s Who Legal Awards and Professional Negligence Set of the Year (2022) at the Chambers & Partners UK Bar Awards, 4 New Square are renowned for being the top set in this field.

“4 New Square offers unparalleled capabilities in the area of professional negligence, regularly attracting key instructions for and against professionals in the legal, financial and insurance sectors. The set excels in any case involving advice on financial planning, investments, tax liability, property or the conduct of litigation. It is notable for its deft handling of the high-value and the legally complex, including a number of recent cases on limitation, or causation, or successor practices in claims against solicitors.  – Chambers & Partners

‘A stand out performer in this area’, 4 New Square is a ‘pre-eminent set for defendant professional negligence work’ with ‘great strength in depth’ – ‘the quality of the barristers is second to none‘.’ – Legal 500

Chambers regularly win the Chambers & Partners ‘Professional Negligence Set of the Year’ and Members of Chambers frequently win silk or junior of the year in this area and individuals have been recognised as ‘stars’ in the directories. Moreover, we have more individuals ranked in the Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners for professional negligence than any other set. In short we boast not only star individuals but unrivalled strength in depth.

Members of chambers appear in many of the most prominent and high value professional negligence cases.

Jackson & Powell on Professional Liability, the leading practitioner book on this area of law, continues to be edited in house.

Cases range from multi-million pound claims in a wide variety of commercial contexts to claims by private individuals who feel they have been let down by their professional advisers. We act in cases involving the full range of professions and are experienced in cases with an international element.

Whatever the claim, whatever the profession and whether acting for the claimant or the defendant, we bring to it both an understanding of the underlying circumstances and experience of similar cases.

Our work in this area extends to issues of professional indemnity insurance, including disputes as to avoidance or denial of cover and as to the meaning and effect of policy terms.

Recent cases involving members of chambers include:

  • McLean and Others v Andrew Thornhill: an important claim which assessed whether a leading KC owed a duty of care to participators who lost a £40m failed film tax avoidance scheme in which he had provided counsel’s opinion. 4NS successfully obtained permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal in March 2023. The case is an important one for professional liability generally as well as the Bar in particular.
  • Spire LLP v Withers LLP (Court of Appeal) [2022] EWCA 970: acting at both First Instance and in the Court of Appeal on the important issue as to the scope of a professional’s obligation in respect of an informal and unremunerated enquiry.
  • Percy v Merriman White [2022] EWCA Civ 493 – a claim for contribution pursuant to 1978 act by a solicitor against counsel, following the settlement of claim by the solicitor.
  • Re One Blackfriars Ltd [2021] EWHC 684 (Ch)4NS successfully defended the former administrators of One Blackfriars in a £250m claim by the liquidators of the company who claimed the former administrators allegedly sold off a company asset at a substantial undervalue. Trial took place in Summer 2020 and was (at the time) the longest remote trial in the Business & Property Courts.
  • Skatteforvaltningen v Solo Capital Partners LLP [2020] EWHC 1624 (Comm), a £1.5billion claim in the Commercial Court arising from allegedly fraudulent withhold tax reclaims submitted on behalf of pension funds and custodians purportedly engaged in dividend arbitrage trading.
  • Various Claimants v Giambrone & Law – claims totalling c£20m against solicitors instructed in respect of proposed purchases of off-plan properties in Italy which collapsed.  A key issue in the case concerns the aggregation of claims.  After various hearings in the case in the High Court and following two appeals to the Court of Appeal, proceedings in the aggregation dispute are due to be issued in 2021.
  • BPE Solicitors v Hughes-Holland [2017] UKSC 21, a seminal decision of the Supreme Court relating to the scope of professionals’ liability for damages where members of Chambers appears on both sides.
  • Lowick Rose LLP v. Swynson Ltd and another [2017] UKSC 32, a leading Supreme Court decision on the scope of the doctrine of collateral benefit (otherwise known as res inter alios acta) alongside the concepts of transferred loss and equitable subrogation based on unjust enrichment.

Contact our Clerks’ Room

Contact clerks

Chambers & Partners

“It is the best professional negligence set in the country: the strength and depth it has is phenomenal.”

Accreditations

Professional Negligence Barristers

Nicholas Bacon KC

Call: 1992 Silk: 2010

Jonathan Hough KC

Call: 1997 Silk: 2014

Justin Fenwick KC

Call: 1980 Silk: 1993

Roger Stewart KC

Call: 1986 Silk: 2001

Patrick Lawrence KC

Call: 1985 Silk: 2002

David Halpern KC

Call: 1978 Silk: 2006

Graeme McPherson KC

Call: 1993 Silk: 2008

Ben Hubble KC

Call: 1992 Silk: 2009

David Turner KC

Call: 1992 Silk: 2009

Ben Patten KC

Call: 1986 Silk: 2010

Ben Elkington KC, FCIArb

Call: 1996 Silk: 2012

Graham Chapman KC

Call: 1998 Silk: 2014

Benjamin Williams KC

Call: 1994 Silk: 2015

Neil Hext KC

Call: 1995 Silk: 2015

Jamie Smith KC

Call: 1995 Silk: 2015

Paul Mitchell KC

Call: 1999 Silk: 2016

Alison Padfield KC

Call: 1992 Silk: 2018

Robert Marven KC

Call: 1994 Silk: 2018

Nicole Sandells KC

Call: 1994 Silk: 2018

Siân Mirchandani KC, FCIArb

Call: 1997 Silk: 2019

Daniel Saoul KC

Call: 2008 Silk: 2019

Roger Mallalieu KC

Call: 1998 Silk: 2020

Richard Liddell KC

Call: 1999 Silk: 2020

Amanda Savage KC

Call: 1999 Silk: 2020

Clare Dixon KC

Call: 2002 Silk: 2021

George Spalton KC

Call: 2004 Silk: 2021

Helen Evans KC

Call: 2001 Silk: 2022

Matthew Bradley KC

Call: 2004 Silk: 2022

Richard O’Brien KC

Call: 2005 Silk: 2024

Shail Patel KC

Call: 2006 Silk: 2024

Paul Parker

Call: 1986

Hugh Evans

Call: 1987

Nigel Burroughs

Call: 1991

Andrew Nicol

Call: 1991

Charles Phipps

Call: 1992

Nicola Shaldon

Call: 1994

Michael Bowmer

Call: 1997

Scott Allen

Call: 2000

Stephen Innes

Call: 2000

Carl Troman

Call: 2001

Tim Chelmick

Call: 2004

Benjamin Wood

Call: 2005

Hugh Saunders

Call: 2006

Tom Asquith

Call: 2007

George McDonald

Call: 2007

Lucy Colter

Call: 2008

Thomas Ogden

Call: 2008

Tom Shepherd

Call: 2008

Chris Greenwood

Call: 2009

Ben Smiley

Call: 2009

Nicholas Broomfield

Call: 2010

Pippa Manby

Call: 2010

Benjamin Fowler

Call: 2011

Anthony Jones

Call: 2011

Paul Fisher

Call: 2012

Saaman Pourghadiri

Call: 2012

Theo Barclay

Call: 2013

Mark Cullen

Call: 2013

Jack Steer

Call: 2013

Diarmuid Laffan

Call: 2014

Simon Teasdale

Call: 2015

William Harman

Call: 2016

Seohyung Kim

Call: 2016

Dr Benjamin Archer

Call: 2017

Hannah Daly

Call: 2017

John Williams

Call: 2017

Carola Binney

Call: 2019

Will Cook

Call: 2019

Conor Ewing

Conor Ewing

Call: 2020

Sir Rupert Jackson

Call: 1972 Silk: 1987

William Birch

Call: 2021

Ed Grigg

Call: 2021

If you would like to know more or have a question please talk to our clerks

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