Suing a Lawyer for Negligence in Melbourne

Your lawyer got it wrong, and now you have to pick the right path

You trusted a solicitor or barrister with something that mattered, and their mistake has cost you money. A missed limitation date, a botched settlement, a conveyance that fell over, drafting that did not do what you asked. Victoria gives you three different paths against a lawyer, each aimed at a different problem and each running on its own deadline. Choose the wrong one and you can burn months while the 6-year window on the real claim quietly closes.

Call MK Law on 1800 130 120 before you lodge anything. One free call sorts out which path your problem belongs on.

Three paths against a lawyer, three different deadlines

A professional negligence claim is the only path that compensates your full loss. It is a court claim for damages, it needs expert evidence, and you generally have 6 years from the breach. If your lawyer’s error cost you a house deposit, a settlement or a winnable case, this is your door. Our professional negligence team runs these files every week.

A costs dispute is for a bill that is too high, and the deadlines there are brutal. You generally have 60 days after the costs became payable to bring the dispute to the Victorian Legal Services Board and Commissioner, or 30 days after an itemised bill you requested was provided. The VLSB+C can only deal with bills under $100,000, or larger bills where the amount in dispute is under $10,000. Beyond that, the bill goes to the Costs Court in the Supreme Court of Victoria.

A conduct complaint to the VLSB+C disciplines the lawyer. It must generally concern conduct within the past 3 years, and compensation is capped at $25,000 for proven direct loss. It can feel satisfying, and sometimes it is the right move, but it will not recover a six-figure loss.

One trap is worth naming. Lodging a complaint does not stop the limitation clock on a negligence claim. Plenty of people discover this only after the court deadline on the real claim has expired.

Bring us the file, we tell you which path pays

On the first call we work out what your old lawyer was retained to do, what a competent practitioner would have done instead, and what the difference cost you. Then we tell you plainly which of the three paths fits: a damages claim, a costs dispute, a complaint, or sometimes two of them run together. The call is free, and if the claim does not stack up we say so before you spend a cent.

Get your file reviewed

What you have to prove to sue a lawyer

The claim turns on the same four elements as any professional negligence case: duty, breach, causation and loss. The hard part with lawyers is causation. Where the negligence lost you a case or a settlement, the court effectively re-runs the matter inside your claim to work out what you would have recovered. That takes an independent expert solicitor or barrister who will say, in writing, that a competent practitioner would have acted differently. Without that report the claim does not survive a strike-out application. A report typically costs between $8,000 and $25,000, and we agree that budget with you before anyone is briefed. The full anatomy of a claim is set out in our professional negligence claims guide.

Advocate’s immunity protects less than lawyers like to suggest

Some solicitors wave away complaints with “you can’t sue me, court work is immune”. That is only part of the law. Advocate’s immunity covers the conduct of a hearing and out-of-court work intimately connected with it. The High Court has held it does not cover negligent advice to settle a case, and the same limit applies to advice to reject a settlement offer. It has never covered transactional work: conveyancing, contract drafting, wills, commercial advice, or missing a limitation date. If a lawyer has told you that immunity kills your claim, treat that as an opinion worth testing on a free call rather than a ruling.

Wills throw up the awkward version of this. Where a will was drafted so that it did not do what the person making it asked for, the people who missed out can sometimes claim against the drafting solicitor, and are sometimes better off contesting a will that left them short. We look at both before picking one, because an estate and a professional indemnity insurer are very different pockets.

What happens when you call

You speak to a lawyer, and the call is free. We pin down the dates, pick the right path, and give you an honest read on the merits before you commit to anything. Suing your former lawyer feels awkward, and losing the money for good is worse. Call 1800 130 120 or send the form on this page, and use the button that says GET FREE ADVICE. We answer evenings and weekends, because limitation dates do not keep office hours.