Mason and others v Mills & Reeve (a firm) [2011] EWHC 410 (Ch), [2011] All ER (D) 11 (Mar)
A solicitor’s duty to his client was primarily contractual and its scope depended on the express and implied terms of his retainer. The key implied term of any solicitor’s retainer was that the solicitor had a duty to exercise reasonable care and skill. The extent of his duties depended upon the terms and limits of the retainer and any duty of care to be implied had to be related to what he had been instructed to do. The duties owed by a solicitor to his client were high, in the sense that he held himself out as practising a highly skilled and exacting profession but the court had to beware of imposing upon solicitors duties which went beyond the scope of what they had been requested or had undertaken to do.
The scope of the duty to exercise reasonable care and skill depended on the circumstances of the case and would depend first and foremost upon the content of the instructions given to the solicitor by the client. One of
