Methods for limiting attorneys' professional liability to the client: comparative perspective

At all times activity of the lawyers has been considered as an honourable profession. Accordingly, legislation, jurisprudence and legal doctrine of various countries have an inclination to impose higher standards, more strict requirements and restrictions with regard to attorneys’ activities. Nevertheless, lately the approach to the lawyers’ profession has a tendency to get more liberal, that allows attorneys to consider options to limit their professional liability towards their clients. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to analyse possible techniques to limit attorneys‘(as one of the professionals‘) liability in comparative perspective and to assess effectiveness of abovementioned methods of liability limitation. The research provided in this article has shown that there are two techniques that can be used in order to limit attorneys’ liability: contractual terms limiting party’s liability toward other party to the contract and appropriate forms of attorney’s legal practice, for example, by use of a limited company, limited partnership or limited liability partnership. The authors also make a conclusion that the single advantage of professional law partnership in Lithuania is the fact that the claims of the creditors are directed to a lawyer in case of insufficiency of property of professional law partnership.