Hugh Evans

Hugh has an extensive practice in lawyers’ liability work, and acts for defendants and claimants. He particularly relishes cases with complex and difficult facts and law, but he also enjoys courtroom rough and tumble, and in particular cross-examination. He relishes tactical thinking, including in mediations, of which he has extensive experience.

Most cases are won or lost on issues of causation and damages. Hugh applies ingenuity to problems of causation. On quantification of damages, he enjoys working with accountants and other experts, and he is very comfortable with scientific and mathematical concepts.

Hugh brings to his practice his extensive knowledge and reflection on the law. He edits the chapters on solicitors and barristers in Jackson and Powell on Professional Liability, and has done since 1992, he is the author of Lawyers’ Liabilities (2nd edn 2002) and over thirty articles, mostly on lawyers’ liabilities. In the wasted costs case of Medcalf v. Mardell Lord Bingham, giving the leading speech, said: “This House is grateful for the perceptive commentary on the weaknesses of this jurisdiction made by Hugh Evans, “The Wasted Costs Jurisdiction” (2001) 64 MLR 51″, and Lord Hobhouse described the article as “valuable“.

Hugh’s experience and practice covers almost the entire range of lawyers’ liability work, including, for instance, bungled matrimonial and criminal cases, defective wills, errors in agricultural law, liens, and wasted costs. He advises on related insurance disputes, including in relation to aggregation and dishonesty. However, the major part of his lawyers’ liability work is in four areas:

• Defective commercial agreements, particularly with a chancery flavour.  This includes: failures to comply with company law requirements in various respects such as in the purchase of the company’s own shares; tax-inefficient structuring of agreements in a wide variety of ways; defective sale and purchase agreements, such as failures to include appropriate warranties and due diligence, and errors in relation to insecure future consideration; failures to analyse the collective effect and working of suites of agreements; failures of advice to clients as to the effect of contractual provisions; failures to ensure that contracts were binding by reason of lack of authority or negligent drafting; failures to advise on the wisdom of transactions; and duties owed to third parties.
• Claims of fraud against solicitors or claimants in a wide variety of contexts, including lenders’ claims against allegedly fraudulent solicitors, and the insurance repercussions of fraud.
• Conveyancing negligence in claims brought by lending institutions, commercial clients, and individuals.  These include: several recent and ongoing multiparty claims by investors in fractional development property schemes (for instance Various Claimants v Scott Fowler [2018] EWHC 1891 (Ch)); the full range of lenders’ disputes, of which he has done many in the last wave of such claims; many claims by individuals in relation to fraudulent gifted deposit schemes; claims in relation to shared equity schemes; claims concerning allegedly negligent advice given to spouses; failures to check title and planning permissions; negligence in relation to contaminated land; failures to advise properly on break clauses; failures to advise on capacity; failures to advise on the worth of guarantors; claims concerning escalating ground rents, defective leasehold enfranchisements, and claims involving conveyancing fraud.
• Lost or bungled litigation of all types, including failed professional liability claims, chancery and commercial disputes, and even boundary disputes. In bungled medical negligence and personal injury cases (including VWF and fibromyalgia), Hugh is able to bring to bear his knowledge and experience of the underlying areas of litigation, in which he continues to practice.

Featured cases

• Represented the Defendants in a successful strike out application for abuse of process where the claimant sought damages for wrongful conviction for murder after an unsuccessful appeal to the Criminal Court of Appeal in Workman v Deansgate 123 LLP [2019] PNLR 18.
• Represented the claimant lender in a claim against allegedly dishonest solicitors in two successful applications for disclosure and amending the Particulars of Claim in Mortgage Services Limited Number One v Cripps Harries Hall (2015, and [2016] EWHC 387 (Ch)), and (led by Ben Hubble KC) at trial, [2016] EWHC 2483 (Ch).
• Represented the partly successful claimants in an application to strike out the claim for abuse of process by paying too small an issue fee in Lewis v Ward Hadaway [2016] 4 WLR 6, and several similar subsequent cases.
• Represented the successful defendant in a claim by a lender as to whether she was held out as a partner and whether the lender relied on such representations, in UCB Home Loans v Soni, at first instance and in the Court of Appeal [2013] EWCA Civ 62.
• Represented the successful defendant in October 2011 on a preliminary issue on limitation in Boycott v RWPS Solicitors [2012] PNLR 25, a claim by a former cricketer complaining that property was held with his former partner on a joint tenancy.
• Represented the successful claimant in Youlton v Charles Russell [2010] Lloyd’s Rep PN 227, where solicitors failed to take steps to ensure that agreements between a company and its pension scheme trustees were not open to challenge on grounds of want of authority and conflict of interest.
• Represented the successful insurer in Goldsmith Williams v Travelers Insurance Co Ltd [2010] Lloyd’s Rep IR 309, a claim under the Third Parties (Rights against Insurers) Act 1930 which failed because the insured company’s directors engaged in or condoned mortgage frauds.
• Represented the solicitors in Mishcon de Reya (a firm) v Barrett [2007] 1 BCLC 153, a partly successful strike-out application concerning the appointment of provisional liquidators.
• Represented the successful solicitors in Miller v Garton Shires (a firm) [2007] PNLR 273, a claim concerning bungled personal injury litigation.
• Represented the successful claimant in St Pauls Travelers Insurance Company Limited v. Okporuah [2006] EWHC 2207 (Ch), a mortgage fraud claim.
• Represented the successful solicitors at first instance in Fulham Leisure Holdings v. Nicholson Graham & Jones [2006] EWHC 158 (Ch), [2006] 2 All ER 599, [2006] P.N.L.R. 23 (on waiver of privilege); and [2006] EWHC 2017 (Ch), [2006] 4 All ER 1397 (Note) , (2007) PNLR 5, which concerned the drafting of a shareholders’ agreement.
• Represented the unsuccessful solicitors in Ball v. Druces & Attlee (A Firm) [2002] P.N.L.R. 23 and [2004] P.N.L.R. 39 (failure to protect founder’s rights in the Eden Project).
• Represented the barrister in Hansom & ors v E Rex Makin [2003] EWCA Civ 1801, an appeal on relief from sanctions.
• Represented the defendant, losing at first instance but succeeding in the Court of Appeal against Leading Counsel and thus disposing of the claim on a preliminary issue in Haq v. Singh [2001] 1 WLR 1594, which concerned the meaning of change of capacity in CPR rule 17.4(4).
• Represented the unsuccessful barrister in the wasted costs case of B v. B (Wasted costs: abuse of process) [2001] 3 F.C.R. 724.
• Represented the successful claimant at first instance on a limitation preliminary issue, to be overturned by a majority of the Court of Appeal, in Havenledge Ltd. v. John & Partners [2001] Lloyd’s Law Rep PN 614 and [2001] Lloyd’s Law Rep PN 223.
• Represented the successful claimant in Bacon v. Howard Kennedy [1999] PNLR 1, a disappointed beneficiary case.