Professional Liability
Adam was ranked as a Rising Star by Legal 500 in 2021 for professional negligence. He is regularly instructed in a wide range of professional negligence matters, and he has a particular interest in claims involving legal professionals. His daily court appearances and significant experience in commercial, property damage and personal injury disputes underpin his meticulous and robust approach. Adam accepts instructions on behalf of claimants and defendants, and also on a CFA basis where appropriate.
Adam has acted in numerous solicitor negligence cases where the underlying dispute involves personal injury, matrimonial, estate planning, and conveyancing matters. He has also acted in cases involving barristers, surveyors, financial advisers, and accountants. He is developing a focus on the interface between lawyers and technology, having acted in conveyancing cyber-fraud and website misrepresentation cases. He has also defended professionals from spurious private prosecutions in the criminal courts where the claimant has failed to obtain civil remedies.
Selected Cases
- Representing a director of a major accountancy firm in relation to a private prosecution made by a former client who had failed to obtain civil compensation in respect of the firm’s financial advice, and which was successfully struck out at the summons stage (i.e. upon issue of the prosecution) for being both defective and vexatious.
- Defending a firm of solicitors against a claim in negligence and breach of contract relating to a conveyancing cyber-fraud where international hackers were able to access the solicitors’ email system and pretend to be the conveyancing solicitor, so as to request and receive payment of the property funds. Key issues in the case included the reasonableness of the IT security systems in place and causation as to whether the claimant would have been the victim of the hack even with tighter security.
- Drafting the Particulars of Claim in a dispute against the claimant’s former solicitors, where his personal injury claim was struck out due to noncompliance and delay, and he subsequently lost his QOCS cost protection.
- Defending solicitors involved in the allegedly fraudulent transfer of a property at the centre of a bad-tempered family estate dispute, and applying for strike out following service of the pleadings, in that the case against the defendant was both stale and unsupported by a defined cause of action.
- Advising the claimant company and director in their dispute against former solicitors in relation to a claim against a mortgagee and LPA receiver for sale at an undervalue.
- Drafting the defence and providing written advice for a leading London estate agent accused of negligently drafting the break clause within a tenancy agreement.
- Advising as to the merits of a prospective claim in negligent misstatement relating to a company’s website, which advertised one of its members as a professional when in fact he was a fraudster.
- Adam regularly drafts letters before claim in defence of professionals, in order to deter unnecessary litigation and unmeritorious claims.
- Acting pro bono for a theatre company who sued its solicitors from an underlying dispute concerning a contract to perform at a theatre. The defendant solicitors firm settled before trial for virtually the whole amount of the claim.
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Qualifications
- Hardwicke, Droop and Shelford Scholarships, Lincoln’s Inn
- Margaret Branthwaite CPE Prize
- BPTC, University of Law, Birmingham
- GDL, University of Birmingham
- BA Hons (First Class), Worcester College, University of Oxford
Memberships
- Lincoln’s Inn
- Ordre des Avocats Vaudois (Vaudois Bar Association, invited member)
- Federation Suisse des Avocats (Swiss Bar Association)
- Association Suisse de Droit du Sport (Swiss Sports Law Association)
