Professional Liability Defense

McGuinness & Associates both pursues and defends professional malpractice actions and related claims for professional negligence and/or alleged fiduciary duty liability. Our lawyers have represented engineers, architects, attorneys, accountants and other professionals. We have both successfully defended professionals and obtained recoveries on malpractice claims.

Successfully litigating a professional liability case begins with an understanding of that professional’s scope of engagement. Our lawyers then identify applicable professional standards with which work performed pursuant to that scope of engagement can be analyzed. Our firm works with distinguished and effective experts to both conduct the appropriate duty of care analysis and best prepare for litigation of the professional liability matter.

Additionally, when representing professionals, our firm gathers and carefully analyzes all operative insurance policies to fully identify the rights and obligations of our client. Reporting responsibilities imposed on our client must be timely fulfilled. Policy claims must both be timely compiled and properly drafted to require insurers to undertake the complete scope of their coverage responsibilities. By properly pursuing coverage rights our clients can benefit from insurance policy benefits including payment of litigation costs, funding of a claim settlement and/or the provision of indemnification against any award.

Our lawyers have litigated the following representative Professional Liability cases:

Aggressively defended an action alleging substantial architect liability for malpractice and fraud. This firm developed facts and an analysis to demonstrate that our client bore no fault. This matter was fully resolved without any payment to claimant.
This firm defended an engineer client against a malpractice claim for allegedly providing defective drawings. Claimant asserted that drawing inadequacies resulted in substantial extra work, delay and expense. This firm established that our client’s design and support work was compliant with both professional standards and contractual responsibilities. Claimant was persuaded to abandon its claim without litigation and without payment of any kind by our client.
This firm successfully sued an accountant who failed to detect classic fraud indicators apparent in audit documentation. Our client obtained a significant recovery against this accountant through an action for malpractice.
Obtained coverage and successfully defended an attorney in a legal malpractice case concerning investment securities. This firm obtained an agreement pursuant to which our client’s insurance carrier paid all legal fees and expenses incurred to defend the case. All claims were fully resolved without our client making a payment of any kind.
In several actions to defend contractors, this firm has successfully brought counter-actions against design professionals. In each such case, design professional malpractice was established to avoid significant claims against our firm’s contractor clientele.