This committee has responsibility for highlighting issues involving professional liability litigation, with particular focus on the following areas:

• Accountants' Liability
• Attorneys' Liability
• Attorneys' Loss Prevention & Ethics
• Directors' and Officers' Liability
• Professional Liability Insurance Coverage Litigation

Issues of the committee’s Professional Liability @LERT newsletter are available online to members. We also bring the latest news to your desktop with our periodic HTML bulletin, Professional Liability e@ALERT, also available to committee members.

We welcome your participation and would appreciate hearing your ideas for articles, case alerts, ethics opinions, and legislation effecting professionals. If you have contributions, suggestions or comments regarding the committee’s web site, please contact our website editors, Seth Meisel and Kimberly Melvin. If you have contributions, suggestions or comments regarding the committee’s newsletter, please contact our newsletter editors, Jane Ann Neiswender and Dina Cox.

The committee is also active in presenting programs at the Section of Litigation Annual Conference and ABA Annual Meetings held in April and August, respectively.

On August 5, 2008, the ABA presented its formal comments to the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) exposure draft entitled, "Disclosure of Certain Loss Contingencies: An Amendment of FASB Statements 5 and 141(R)." The Exposure Draft has the potential to affect significantly lawyers' responses to audit inquiry letters, which are auditors' requests for information on loss contingencies regarding pending or threatened litigation.

A new bank of case notes has just been added to our committee website, covering the topic of attorneys’ liability. Includes information on cases such as Stroud v. Tunzi, Flying J Inc v. TA Operating Corp., and more.

On January 15, 2008, the United States Supreme Court held that investors suing business partners of an issuer must plead and ultimately prove actual reliance to state a claim under Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, rejecting so-called “scheme liability.”