Disciplinary law and the quality of a lawyer's service
A lawyer has a broad discretion as to how he conducts a case, and the disciplinary tribunals are slow to second-guess those choices. On 1 December 2025 the Disciplinary Appeals Tribunal nonetheless imposed a four-week suspension from practice. It went wrong there on two connected levels: in the substance of the work, and in the communication and record-keeping about it.
In short, the tribunals step in where the quality of the work has been clearly below standard, and above all where a lawyer has missed a mandatory rule or cannot show what he advised and what was agreed. Simply losing a case is not enough.
Suspension after missing procedural knowledge and a ban on complaining
The Disciplinary Appeals Tribunal found the lawyer at fault for not knowing civil procedure well enough.
In May 2024 the Arnhem-Leeuwarden Disciplinary Tribunal imposed a six-week conditional suspension, upholding only the complaints about his failure to keep the client informed and about the way he terminated the engagement. The Appeals Tribunal set that aside and imposed an unconditional four-week suspension from practice, taking effect on 22 December 2025. It also upheld the complaints of substandard legal work and of mishandling the internal complaint, and imposed a heavier measure because the complaints upheld were connected.
The lawyer sued a witness who was said to have lied in German criminal proceedings against his client. On appeal he submitted six further exhibits less than two hours before the hearing. The Amsterdam court of appeal disregarded them: the opposing party had been given no time to read them, and no explanation for the late filing was offered.
Matters deteriorated further in parallel appeals. The client believed that his lawyer could first file a brief statement of grounds of appeal and add to it later. That belief was never corrected. The afternoon before the cause-list date the lawyer wrote: "If I put in grounds of appeal for you and you then add to them yourself later, I've had enough of the hassle." That was not possible. The rule that all grounds of appeal must as a general rule be set out in the first substantive pleading, the tweeconclusieregel, follows from section 347 of the Dutch Code of Civil Procedure (Rv). The Appeals Tribunal was blunt: it treated that gap in his knowledge of civil procedure as a breach in itself. Both criticisms, taken separately and together, were serious enough to breach the core value of expertise.
Then there is the termination of the engagement. Shortly before a deadline expired, the lawyer put a settlement agreement to his client as a condition for filing the grounds of appeal. It barred the client from bringing any disciplinary complaint, on pain of a single penalty payment of EUR 10,000. The Appeals Tribunal held that putting the client in that position was seriously culpable. Given the time pressure and the size of the penalty payment, the conditions were disproportionate in this case and showed that the lawyer had put his own interests first, which breached the core value of integrity. The third complaint upheld concerned the internal complaint, which sat for almost two months before it reached the complaints officer.
The measure went up because the three complaints upheld were connected. To understand the doctrine, though, two of them are worth separating, because they succeed along different lines. The procedural criticism goes to the substance of the work. The complaint about information turned on something else: the lawyer maintained that he had informed his client, undertook on appeal to produce the correspondence and then failed to do so, so the Appeals Tribunal could not find that he had. A missing record is therefore more than an evidential problem, because it can itself amount to a breach of the duty to inform.
Without a written technical standard the test is due care
Section 46 of the Dutch Advocates Act (Advocatenwet) makes lawyers subject to disciplinary jurisdiction, including for any act or omission unbecoming a proper lawyer. The quality test turns on that last limb. Section 10a of the Advocates Act sets out five core values, two of which recur in these cases: expertise and integrity. Where such a case names a core value at all, it is usually one of those two.
The test is that the tribunal is also required to assess the quality of the lawyer's work where a complaint is made about it, and that his discretion is bounded by the standards of the profession. For that standard the tribunals cite the Disciplinary Appeals Tribunal decision of 5 February 2018, in which the approach taken was held to be properly defensible and the complaint failed. The Appeals Tribunal explains why the test is so open-ended: it applies because the profession has no broadly shared, written professional standards on technical quality. There is no broadly shared, written professional standard for technical quality, so the tribunals test against the open standard of the reasonably competent and reasonably acting lawyer in the circumstances.
That is a deferential test, and in recent decisions the tribunals put it in so many words: there is culpable conduct only where the quality has been clearly below standard. That is the threshold every such complaint has to clear. What the standard requires in substance, the tribunals draw from what has to happen at the outset: assessing the prospects of success and telling the client about them, including the chances in the proceedings and the costs risk.
For the duty to inform and to keep records there is a concrete rule. Rule of Conduct 16(1) requires a lawyer to inform his client of important information, facts and arrangements, and to confirm all of this in writing where necessary. The tribunals are not bound by the Rules of Conduct, but draw on them in applying the open-ended standard in section 46. What the civil courts do with a rule of conduct is a separate question: three courts of appeal annulled a suretyship for legal fees for breach of Rule of Conduct 28.
Two features of the procedure matter for the outcome. The president of the Tribunal may dispose of a complaint before the hearing if it is manifestly unfounded, manifestly inadmissible or manifestly of insufficient weight. That decision may be opposed, and no further appeal lies against the decision on the objection. Beyond that, the right of appeal is asymmetric. A lawyer may in principle appeal a substantive final decision of the Tribunal to the Disciplinary Appeals Tribunal. The complainant's right is narrower: he may appeal only if his complaint has been dismissed in whole or in part. A complainant who wins outright and thinks the measure too light therefore cannot challenge it; the Dean can. One opening does remain for him: if his request for a ruling on whether the lawyer exercised due care is refused where the complaint is upheld, an appeal does lie after all.
What falls within the lawyer's discretion
Many complaints about the quality of a lawyer's work fail. In the decisions analysed the reason is often that the approach he chose fell within his discretion, even where the facts were as the complainant put them. That discretion relates to how he conducts the client's own case, and is separate from the latitude he has towards the opposing party, for instance in threatening publicity as leverage.
A lawyer may refuse to litigate. The Hague Disciplinary Tribunal, 4 May 2026 dismissed a complaint by an employee who, after long-term incapacity for work, wanted to claim compensation for a knee injury and psychological injury. His lawyer thought the causal link with the work insufficiently proven, explained that at length and advised him to sign the settlement agreement. Lawyers are expected not to start proceedings in which they see insufficient prospect of success, the Tribunal held, and the fact that the client weighs the evidence differently does not change that. Because the agreement contained a full and final settlement, that route was closed in practice as well.
A lawyer may also define the scope of the engagement. A father wanted to litigate on several fronts; his lawyer applied for legal aid for the reduction to nil for the youngest son alone, because the eldest had turned 21. The president found that explanation cogent and dismissed the complaint on 13 May 2026 as manifestly unfounded. Both Hague decisions also point to a 's-Hertogenbosch decision of the president of 18 November 2024: a lawyer need not start work before the client has paid his statutory contribution.
Even an admitted error does not always clear the threshold. A lawyer had undertaken to obtain a criminal file, failed to do so and acknowledged the omission. The 's-Hertogenbosch Disciplinary Tribunal, 26 May 2025 found that careless, but of insufficient weight to amount to a disciplinary breach, and held that her duty extended no further than the engagement she had accepted. The Disciplinary Appeals Tribunal upheld that on 3 April 2026.
Where the work itself falls short, no paperwork saves it
The same criticisms recur in the decisions analysed. A deadline or a pleading missed, a legal choice that turns out to be wrong, no advice on prospects and costs at the outset, and a client left uninformed. The first two go to the work itself, the last two to what the lawyer can demonstrate. Those are the two lines, and this section deals with the first.
Where procedural rules and time limits are in play there is little room to manoeuvre, as the opening case shows. There was no justification for exhibits filed as late as those, and relying on being able to add to the grounds of appeal afterwards was simply wrong in law.
The same applies to a deliberate choice that was legally wrong. The Hague Disciplinary Tribunal, 1 December 2025 reprimanded a lawyer who had issued a writ of summons on behalf of one of two partners rather than on behalf of the general partnership that had leased the business premises. The subdistrict court dismissed the claim as inadmissible and held that this was not a slip capable of correction but a considered choice. That characterisation is decisive. An obvious error in naming a party can be put right; in this case the considered choice of the wrong litigating party could not be treated as a repairable slip. The Tribunal found the professional error established on the judgment and the file alone.
The client had flagged the looming inadmissibility himself after reading the defence and had asked for a discussion. That concern was brushed aside without any reasoned response. Had the lawyer taken it seriously, he could have found his own error and still put it right. A warning of this kind from the client is therefore to be taken seriously. He was also criticised for his tone in the emails, which was irritable and presumptuous, and for arriving late at a meeting he had himself rescheduled. The complaint failed, however, so far as it concerned the writ itself: the Tribunal found nothing culpable in its contents or in how the claim was substantiated.
A step taken too late falls in the same category. On 19 February 2024 a father filed a petition about parental authority, principal residence and the care arrangement for his children; maintenance was not part of it. The mother's lawyer began that same month and was demonstrably active, but applied for maintenance only on 12 July 2024, in the defence, almost five months later.
That is the failing, and the reason lies in the commencement date: as a general rule that is the date of filing, and a court will backdate it only in exceptional cases. Every month of waiting cost the mother a month's maintenance. The 's-Hertogenbosch Disciplinary Tribunal, 7 April 2026 held that failing to apply promptly for interim child maintenance breached both the duty of expedition and the core value of expertise.
Work that is actually done can still fall short. A car buyer told his lawyer on 3 July 2024, and more than once after that, that the car had been repaired without his consent and that he was not going to pay half the cost. A week later he received, within an hour and a half, a 24-page engagement letter, an invoice for EUR 499 and a standard notice of default to the garage premised on its being given an opportunity to remedy. That letter served no purpose at all, the Amsterdam Disciplinary Tribunal held on 8 September 2025, because the repair had already been carried out. A lawyer is expected to work out what the client actually needs and to read what the client sends him. The quality was clearly below standard. The Tribunal held that striking off the roll had to follow, and imposed that measure the same day in its decision on the Dean's complaint against the same lawyer.
Missing documentation shifts the risk on the evidence
The second line is subtler, and explains why the complaints discussed above failed. In those cases the lawyer could show which choice he had made and why. Where that trace is missing the outcome can go the other way, and it does not then help that the choice was defensible.
The Amsterdam Disciplinary Tribunal, 6 October 2025 reduced the rule to two sentences. To prevent misunderstanding a lawyer must record important information and arrangements in writing, and if he does not, he bears the risk of being unable to prove it. In that case, a tenancy dispute about noise and damp, no engagement letter had been produced, and the Tribunal therefore assumed there had been none. Over more than two years acting for the client two substantive letters went to the opposing party, and there was no note of any of the three meetings. The outcome was an unconditional three-week suspension from practice; in reaching it the Tribunal also weighed the lawyer's disciplinary record and her failure to acknowledge any of it.
How harshly that rule can bite is shown by a Hague criminal case. The client was on conditional bail, one condition being that he attend the substantive hearing. Neither he nor his lawyer appeared, no adjournment was sought, and in their absence the court imposed five months' imprisonment, two months of which were suspended.
All contact was by telephone and WhatsApp, the client received no file, and nothing was recorded about strategy, prospects or risks. Where the lawyer asserted that she had informed him, the Tribunal held that this did not appear from the documents because there was no written record, and that she bore the consequences. On 26 January 2026 that became a conditional four-week suspension with a coaching programme as a special condition.
The same requirement applies to the advice given at the outset. A plasterer trading as a sole proprietor was summoned in preliminary relief proceedings, paid his lawyer more than EUR 5,000 on account and was ordered to pay more than EUR 27,000. His lawyer had drafted pleadings and negotiated, but there was no written record whatever of any proper advice on approach or prospects of success. On that footing the Arnhem-Leeuwarden Disciplinary Tribunal held on 1 June 2026 that the client had not been properly advised, and found Rule of Conduct 16 and the core value of expertise seriously breached. The duty to disclose these matters to a consumer at the outset applies outside disciplinary law as well: see the pre-contractual duty to inform of service providers.
The tribunals are precise about what that means. The absence of a written record does not by itself show that the lawyer failed to advise, the Arnhem-Leeuwarden Tribunal held, but he does bear the risk when it comes to proof.
What determines the severity of the measure
On upholding a complaint the Tribunal has five measures at its disposal: a warning, a reprimand, a fine, a suspension from practice of up to one year, and striking off the roll. A fine may be imposed alongside another measure, and a suspension may be wholly or partly conditional. The Tribunal may also decide that no measure follows even though the complaint is upheld.
In the decisions analysed the measure rarely follows from a single failing. The tribunals set the conduct, the disciplinary record and the risk of repetition alongside one another, and weigh whether the lawyer acknowledges what he did wrong.
The Arnhem-Leeuwarden Disciplinary Tribunal, 22 December 2025 imposed an eight-week conditional suspension. The lawyer had failed to file an important document and had gone on corresponding with his client for days about filing documents when the judgment had already been given. Given the gravity of that, and an earlier finding about comparable shortcomings, a reprimand would not suffice.
In the plasterer's case his record already showed two reprimands, a conditional suspension and a conditional fine, without his acknowledging any of it. There the Tribunal also shortened the period under section 8a(3) of the Advocates Act to five years. In that case the period governed how long the unconditional suspension remained visible to third parties on the roll; the statutory starting point is ten years, so shortening it works in the lawyer's favour.
There can be mitigating circumstances too. In the maintenance case the Tribunal confined itself to a warning. The lawyer was a trainee at the time, and it had not been established that her supervising principal had given her enough guidance to keep her from the conduct complained of.
Nor is the record invariably an aggravating factor. In the opening case the Appeals Tribunal expressly left out of account a warning from 2023, because it had been imposed after the conduct under review, which dated from 2022. Anyone with an earlier measure on his record would do well to set out the chronology first.
What this means for a complaint about your lawyer
For the lawyer the lesson is that he can rely on his professional discretion most convincingly where he has recorded which choice he made and why. Record at the outset what the approach is, what prospects and risks attach to it and what it is going to cost, and confirm important arrangements by email afterwards. That determines where the risk on the evidence falls: without a written record a lawyer will often be unable to make his account good, and the uncertainty is his to carry.
Two areas call for particular care, because no paperwork will save the position there. The first is mandatory procedural law, where there is no discretion to protect. A missed deadline, a late exhibit or a ground of appeal that can no longer be added can seldom be presented as a defensible choice. The second is termination of the engagement. Making a client choose under time pressure between a pleading and a settlement agreement goes to integrity. The ban on complaining in the opening case, imposed under time pressure and backed by a penalty payment of EUR 10,000, was held to be disproportionate.
For the client, simply losing a case is no ground for a complaint. What does give a complainant something to work with is the paper trail: is there an engagement letter, was there ever written advice on prospects and costs, were the cause-list notices passed on. If that is absent, the risk on the evidence falls on the lawyer. The same goes for the invoice: what a lawyer must account for in it is discussed under the lawyer's invoice.
Anyone with a specific concern that an error has been made should put it to his lawyer in writing and ask for a reasoned reply. That is the moment at which an error can still be corrected, and brushing such a warning aside has itself been treated as a failing in the decisions analysed.
The tribunals do not entertain a full claim for damages. They can, however, order under section 48b of the Advocates Act, as a special condition, that the lawyer compensate the loss he has caused up to EUR 5,000. Full compensation has to be sought in the civil courts, with their own standard and burden of proof: see professional liability of lawyers, civil-law notaries and accountants.
Frequently asked questions
Within what period must a complaint about your own lawyer be brought?
Within three years of the day on which the complainant knew, or could reasonably have known, of the act or omission, under section 46g(1) of the Advocates Act. If the consequences only came to light later, the period expires one year after the date on which the complainant could reasonably have known of them. Complaints about the amount of a fee may be dismissed as inadmissible where a complaints or arbitration scheme is available.
What can a disciplinary tribunal determine alongside a measure?
A conditional measure can carry a special condition, and in these cases that is a coaching programme on the organisation of the practice, at the lawyer's expense and with a plan approved by the Dean. Section 48b of the Advocates Act also allows a special condition requiring the lawyer to compensate the loss he has caused, up to EUR 5,000. In an appropriate case the Tribunal may also shorten the period under section 8a(3) of the Advocates Act. In the plasterer's case that meant the unconditional suspension stayed visible to third parties on the roll for five years rather than ten. A costs order in favour of the complainant, the Bar and the State often follows where a measure is imposed.
Does a disciplinary ruling count when the client claims damages?
It carries weight without being decisive. The civil court assesses the disciplinary decision alongside the other facts and circumstances. The two frameworks differ in what has to be proved: the tribunal asks whether a proper lawyer could have acted in that way, the civil court whether there was an attributable breach and what loss flows from it. A measure is therefore an indication, and causation and loss still have to be proved in the civil proceedings.
Cited case law
Disciplinary Appeals Tribunal: ECLI:NL:TAHVD:2025:250 (1 December 2025, a gap in the lawyer's knowledge of civil procedure breaches the core value of expertise, and a settlement agreement barring a disciplinary complaint on pain of a penalty payment breaches integrity; four-week suspension); ECLI:NL:TAHVD:2018:32 (5 February 2018, a properly defensible approach to a case does not breach the quality requirements; the decision the tribunals cite for the professional standard); ECLI:NL:TAHVD:2026:95 (3 April 2026, upholding the decision that an admitted omission may be careless and still of insufficient weight).
The Hague Disciplinary Tribunal: ECLI:NL:TADRSGR:2025:247 (1 December 2025, suing on behalf of the wrong party as a considered choice rather than a slip capable of correction, and brushing aside the client's warning; reprimand); ECLI:NL:TADRSGR:2026:31 (26 January 2026, informing a client only by telephone and WhatsApp and recording nothing leaves the risk on the evidence with the lawyer; four-week conditional suspension with a coaching programme); ECLI:NL:TADRSGR:2026:98 (4 May 2026, refusing to litigate where the prospects of success are insufficient falls within the lawyer's discretion, and a full and final settlement closes the route in any event; dismissed); ECLI:NL:TADRSGR:2026:108 (13 May 2026, the engagement may be confined to the part in which the lawyer sees prospects of success; manifestly unfounded).
Amsterdam Disciplinary Tribunal: ECLI:NL:TADRAMS:2025:181 (6 October 2025, no engagement letter and no notes of meetings over more than two years acting for the client, with the disciplinary record and the failure to acknowledge; three-week suspension); ECLI:NL:TADRAMS:2025:156 (8 September 2025, a standard notice of default that served no purpose because the lawyer had not read what the client needed; complaint upheld, measure imposed in the decision on the Dean's complaint); ECLI:NL:TADRAMS:2025:155 (8 September 2025, the Dean's complaint in which the striking off was imposed).
Arnhem-Leeuwarden Disciplinary Tribunal: ECLI:NL:TADRARL:2025:278 (22 December 2025, days of correspondence about filing documents when the judgment had already been given, with an earlier finding about comparable shortcomings; eight-week conditional suspension); ECLI:NL:TADRARL:2026:133 (1 June 2026, the absence of written advice on approach and prospects of success seriously breaches Rule of Conduct 16 and the core value of expertise; four-week suspension, with the period for which the measure remains visible on the roll shortened to five years); ECLI:NL:TADRARL:2024:122 (6 May 2024, the decision partly set aside on appeal in the opening case).
's-Hertogenbosch Disciplinary Tribunal: ECLI:NL:TADRSHE:2026:47 (7 April 2026, failing to apply promptly for interim child maintenance breaches the duty of expedition and the core value of expertise, because the commencement date is as a general rule the date of filing; warning, partly because the lawyer was a trainee); ECLI:NL:TADRSHE:2025:88 (26 May 2025, an omitted criminal file is careless but of insufficient weight, and the duty extends no further than the engagement accepted); ECLI:NL:TADRSHE:2024:165 (18 November 2024, a lawyer may hold off starting work until the client's contribution has been paid).