Disclaimer
We can’t promise to get everything right, and we won’t pretend otherwise. This page explains how our advice is given, what it can and can’t be relied on for, and the limits of our responsibility to you.
Our advice is given genuinely and carefully
When you contact us, we talk to you. We read the papers you send. We give you a general view, and often we give a detailed view in writing of where we think the case is, what the options are and what the risks look like. None of that is a sales pitch dressed up as advice — it’s our honest assessment, given by someone with over 40 years’ experience of dealing with matters of this kind.
We don’t rush it, and we don’t tell people what they want to hear. If we think a case is weak, we’ll say so. If we think a settlement is sensible, we’ll say that too.
But it is an assessment, not a guarantee
Advice about a legal problem is a judgment about how a dispute is likely to be seen. It isn’t a promise of what will happen. Outcomes depend on the Tribunal or the court, on the opponent and how they conduct themselves, on the evidence that can be produced, on witnesses, and on points that nobody knew about at the start.
We also can’t be expected to give you an overall view that you can rely on from day one — particularly on day one — or before we’ve seen the whole of the material. At the assessment stage we ordinarily have your account and the documents you’ve chosen to send us. We usually don’t yet have:
- —the complete correspondence, including emails and messages between the parties;
- —the full file, including documents that only the other side holds;
- —where there’s a dispute, the pleadings, orders and directions from the court or Tribunal;
- —the other side’s account of events, which may differ sharply from yours.
Until we’ve seen that material, our view is genuinely preliminary. It may change — sometimes materially — once the documents arrive or the other side’s case becomes known. That isn’t us being cautious for the sake of it; it’s how legal work actually behaves. Where our view changes, we’ll tell you why.
What a paid second opinion is for
A paid litigation second opinion is intended to be useful and reliable within its stated scope and qualifications. It is a considered written assessment of the legal and evidential issues, the strengths and weaknesses of the position, the strategy being pursued and the practical options available, prepared from the papers agreed with you in advance.
Relying on it does not mean treating it as a guarantee of outcome. No analysis can promise to be complete or completely comprehensive: its conclusions depend on the papers and information available. The opinion explains its material assumptions, any missing information and the points requiring further investigation or specialist advice, so that you can see the basis and the limits of what it says.
If you’re in any doubt, take independent advice
If you have any nervousness whatsoever about the advice we’ve given — about relying on it, or about taking a step, or about not taking one — you should take independent legal advice from a solicitor regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority before you act.
Talk Legal is not a firm of solicitors and is not regulated by the SRA. We’d far rather you checked than relied on something you weren’t comfortable with. You’re free to show our assessment to that solicitor, and free to disregard it.
You can read more about our status on Regulation & Client Protection.
The cap on our liability
We don’t promise to get everything right, and where something does go wrong there has to be a limit to what we can be responsible for. Our liability to you is capped by reference to the service involved, as follows:
The free assessment is included. Because the preliminary advice is given free of charge, our liability in respect of that advice is capped at £100 — that is the whole of what we can be responsible for in relation to it. It’s a real assessment, given carefully, but it isn’t the same thing as paid work, and a £100 cap reflects that.
Free assessment and preliminary advice
The conversation, reading of the papers and initial view, given free of charge.
£100
Small claims work
Claimant or defendant work in a small claim.
£1,000
Property and leasehold work
Acting for leaseholders and property owners.
£5,000
Acting for employers
Employment work on behalf of an employer.
£5,000
Company & commercial
Corporate and commercial instructions.
£10,000
Litigation second opinions
Written second opinions, including our contractual confidentiality obligations.
£5,000
One cap per instruction or matter, not per letter, call or task.
The cap is the total for all claims arising out of or in connection with the same instruction or matter, however those claims arise — in contract, in negligence, for misrepresentation or otherwise. It isn’t a cap for each letter, call, task or stage, and it isn’t multiplied by the number of complaints made. Where a single matter spans more than one of the paid services above, the highest applicable cap applies, once.
The £100 cap for the free assessment stands on its own. Where free preliminary advice is followed by paid work, the paid work is covered by its own cap, and the £100 doesn’t reduce or add to it.
These caps apply to Talk Legal Limited and to anyone acting on its behalf. They don’t apply to a separate firm of solicitors or other specialist you instruct yourself: that provider is responsible for its own work, under its own terms and its own insurance.
Nothing on this page, and nothing in our written terms, limits or excludes our liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else the law doesn’t allow us to limit. Nothing here takes away rights you have under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 or any other law, and no cap applies beyond what the law permits.
What the caps don’t cover
Our caps relate to our own work. They don’t cover losses that aren’t caused by us, or losses that a court or Tribunal order, or costs awarded against you, or sums you’re ordered to pay to the other side. They don’t convert an assessment into a guarantee of the outcome, and they don’t make us responsible for meeting deadlines, serving documents or filing material unless we’ve expressly accepted that responsibility in writing as a defined instruction.
Website content is general information. It isn’t advice on your particular matter, and it shouldn’t be acted on without an assessment of your own circumstances and papers. You can read how our prices work and what the free assessment does and doesn’t include.
Uncomfortable with something we’ve said?
Ask us. If you aren’t satisfied with the answer, take advice from an SRA-regulated solicitor — and tell us, so we can address the point properly.
Or email us at win@talklegal.net