Professional Negligence (M3119)
15 credits, Level 6
Autumn teaching
Professional negligence and liability is a well established specialist area of academic legal study, as well as an important specialism within legal practice.
The range of solicitors' firms and barristers' chambers which offer specialist professional negligence services is wide. Some focus upon claimant based actions against, for example, architects, accountants, doctors, lawyers, surveyors whilst others focus upon defence work.
Large City of London and similar practices will often specialise in bringing or defending complex commercially focussed professional negligence claims (e.g. the largest claims against firms of solicitors or accountants can run to hundreds of millions of pounds).
Consideration will also be given to professional protections and the history of professional immunities.
This module aims to enable you to consider and debate key areas of professional negligence and liability, focussing predominantly on the position in England and Wales but also making international comparisons where appropriate.
The module will consider the common law, statutory and other regulatory aspects of professional control and liability. In essence, the module will seek to address the question: 'how are professionals controlled and what avenues of redress are available for the wrongs they commit?'
Teaching
100%: Seminar
Assessment
100%: Written assessment (Essay)
Contact hours and workload
This module is approximately 150 hours of work. This breaks down into about 20 hours of contact time and about 130 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.
We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2021/22. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum. We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.
Courses
This module is offered on the following courses: