Dispute Resolution
Our team of professional negligence solicitors are experts in bringing successful professional negligence claims against solicitors, barristers, accountants, financial advisers, architects, builders, surveyors and other professionals.
These are all services you rely on at important or stressful times in your life and the costs to you can be significant when things go wrong.
Contact our lawyers and explain your situation and the outcome you’d like to achieve. Once our solicitors have assessed your claim, we’ll discuss the different options and strategies you may have. We’ll explain the different options available to you for funding your case. Once agreed, we will work on your case and keep you up to date throughout.
Accountants can help you and your business succeed in many different ways. You often place enormous trust in accountants and expect sound financial advice to protect your assets, improve profits and reduce costs.
If your accountant has failed to provide a reasonable level of service, and you have suffered losses as a result of their negligence, you could be entitled to compensation.
Common examples of negligence by accountants include:
Our solicitors combine their technical expertise with a pragmatic and commercial approach to provide tactical and strategic advice to protect your rights, interest and reputations.
Partner & Head of Dispute Resolution
“Excellent service: quick, responsive, able to identify and advise on issues in a timely way and completely on top of the relevant legal context. Recommended without hesitation”
If you are building a new home or want to maximise a property’s potential, it is more than likely you will have engaged an architect to deliver your plans successfully. Sometimes, however, things can go wrong.
The negligence of an architect can result in disastrous consequences and significant extra costs which could have been avoided if the architect had provided a reasonable level of service.
Brilliant company. Very reliable and trust worthy. If ever needed would highly recommend!
Examples of architect negligence
Our highly experienced solicitors have handled many professional negligence claims against architects.
Examples of architect negligence include:
Barristers are bound by the rules of their profession to conduct a case with proper skill and care. You rely on barristers to represent you when your property, your rights, or your liberty is at stake. If a barrister has been negligent, we can help you secure compensation for any losses you have incurred.
Professional financial advice can help you decide how best to invest your money and plan for the future. It can be difficult to choose from a bewildering array of financial products without advice from a financial advisor. Unfortunately, there have been many examples where people have been sold unsuitable products or given poor advice, resulting in unnecessary losses.
If you believe your financial advisor has been negligent, we can advise on the best course of action to recoup your losses.
You have the right to expect a reasonable quality of service if you go to a solicitor for help. In most cases, solicitors and their clients enjoy good working relationships and get to a satisfactory result. But when a solicitor makes a mistake, the knock-on effects can be serious and expensive, so you may have a claim for professional negligence.
We have an impressive record of success in claims against solicitors.
Examples of solicitor professional negligence:
If you are a homeowner or have bought an investment property, you will doubtless have paid a surveyor to value the property and report on any defects which could have affected its value or your decision to buy the property.
If you later discover the surveyor missed major defects in the property or overvalued it, our highly experienced team of professional negligence solicitors could claim back costs from the surveyor and claim compensation to recover the difference in market value of the property.
You will understandably be angry and frustrated with your surveyor, as the losses involved with incorrect valuations or unexpected building works can be substantial. We appreciate how important it is to put things right.
Lawyers who understand
We understand how difficult it can be to trust when you’ve already been let down by a professional. Our solicitors will treat you as an individual, keep you up-to-date and put you at the heart of the claim.
Experts in the field
Our exceptional team of lawyers have a strong track record of challenging the most formidable opponents, and we’ve won claims against professionals of all kinds. We’re here to help you correct the wrongs of professionals in any way we can, and get the best result possible for you.
Cost-effective solicitors
Our Dispute Resolution team is committed to providing a first-class, whilst cost-effective service. Our philosophy is to firstly understand your personal situation, your requirements and what you’d like to achieve, to then tailor our approach. We’ll achieve the best possible outcome, whilst always keeping you informed about the costs involved.
If a solicitor has failed to issue a claim within time limits, and subsequent efforts to submit a claim were rejected, you may be able to make a professional negligence claim. The burden is on a claimant to prove, on the balance of probability, that the solicitor’s negligence has caused loss.
You may be able to recover damages based on the loss of the chance of making a gain. In such cases, the court trying the professional negligence action can usually only speculate about the outcome of the original proceedings.
When you instruct a solicitor to pursue a claim for damages, you rely on the solicitor to advise you on what losses you can claim and what these are worth. If a solicitor has failed to include certain losses within your claim, or incorrectly valued your claim, causing you loss, then you may be able to pursue a claim for professional negligence.
In order to pursue such a claim, we consider the solicitor’s file relating to the personal injury claim. We would need to assess what information and evidence they had available and whether the advice and valuation the solicitor gave you was within a range of what a reasonably competent solicitor would advise. If it wasn’t, then you may have grounds to pursue a claim.
If you are involved in any kind of legal dispute, we would always recommend that you get advice as soon as possible rather than let the dispute escalate or remain unresolved.
Once we’ve had an opportunity to meet with you to find out all the relevant facts about your case, as well as consider all the key documents and correspondence, we’ll be able to assess whether you have a strong case or not.
If you have a case with good prospects of success we will help you advance your claim as economically as possible. But there are times when our advice may be that your case is not strong and we’ll endeavour to resolve the dispute as quickly as possible so that legal costs are kept down and remain in proportion to the amount/issue in dispute.
We’ll always explore all possible ways of funding your case. Your lawyer will be able to explain your options in greater detail at your initial meeting and, if appropriate, during the running of your case.
Firstly, you should check whether you’re covered by legal expenses insurance (also known as before-the-event insurance). This type of insurance is normally to be found on household or motor insurance policies, but you should check all your insurance policies, premium bank accounts and credit cards as these can sometimes provide it too. If you are covered, then you should notify the insurance provider straight away.
In some cases, we may instead be able to act on a conditional fee agreement basis (“CFA”). Before agreeing to fund your case with a CFA, we’ll have to assess your case carefully. If we agree to act under a CFA and you win your case, a percentage deduction will be taken from any compensation you receive.
There are some types of cases that we handle which you may be able to progress through a Third Party Funding arrangement. This type of arrangement is usually between a specialist funding company and more typically the claimant in a case. The third party funder agrees to pay some or all of your legal fees in exchange for a proportion of the damages that you recover from your opponent.
Hodge Jones & Allen Solicitors have been recognised as one of Chambers and Partners‘ top firms. The firm is also noted by the Legal 500 for our commitment to excellence. You can rest assured that our team are highly experienced in handling even the toughest dispute resolution cases.
Hodge Jones & Allen Solicitors is proud of the many positive testimonials that we receive, reinforced by our ‘Excellent’ rating on Trustpilot. Please read through what some of our clients have had to say about their experience with our legal teams.
This blog our Dispute Resolution team examine the Court of Appeal’s decision in Mazur v CILEX & Others [2026] EWCA Civ 369 and what it means for paralegals and other non-authorised staff undertaking litigation tasks under supervision. It also considers the SRA’s updated guidance on supervision and the importance of effective delegation, direction and control.
The Legal Ombudsman’s latest guidance clarifies the limited scope of what beneficiaries can reasonably request during probate. Although they have an interest in the estate’s administration, access to documents and information is largely discretionary. With complaints in wills and probate rising significantly, LeO stresses clear communication, timely responses and careful expectation‑management as essential to reducing disputes and preventing escalation.
The Government’s 2026 consultation, A Fairer End to Relationships, signals a potential shift in how the law supports cohabiting couples. With proposals covering financial protection, domestic abuse, and inheritance rights, the consultation aims to modernise an outdated framework and address the vulnerabilities many partners face when relationships end.
