Professional Indemnity

Laina has been working on professional indemnity matters since she commenced working as a solicitor in 1996. Her work in professional indemnity has seen her defend:

• solicitors from sole practitioners to top tier law firms like Clayton Utz and Allen, Allen & Hemsley;
• industrial advocates accused of breaching their duty of confidentiality;
• accountants who provided negligent advice in relation to the merits of trading in foreign exchange;
• financial advisors who negligently advised their clients to invest in schemes that were supposed to smooth out their income flow in the short term with a promise of long term capital gains which never eventuated and left the investors with huge debts;
• insurance brokers who have allegedly effected the cover that their clients had instructed them to put in place;
• real estate agents;
• architects, engineers, town planners, surveyors (see the entry under Building and Construction); and
• even chiropractors.

Her long association with professional indemnity matters has also seen her work with a wide range of insurers including CGU professional risks, QBE, Allianz, Liberty Underwriting and Suncorp. She is aware of the different approaches to litigation and attitudes to settlement of the various professional indemnity insurers and is able to adapt her strategy to take these different approaches into account. Recognising the importance of the recovery of costs for some insurers, Ms Chan has managed to secure personal costs orders against third parties to the litigation: see Bateman Long and Maloney Pty Ltd v Long Beach Land Co Pty Ltd [2011] NSWSC 1495.

Her work in professional indemnity also makes her well placed to act for plaintiffs in disputes against professionals.