Professional Liability of Counsellor : Socio-Legal Perspectives

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This research is the first phase of the main research aiming at a socio-legal study on the nature of counselling/advising services for clients who have difficulties in maintaining 'good' relationships with family members or friends. In particular, the main research focuses on counsellors'/advisers' roles and their professional liability when their assistance is claimed as causing damages to their clients. As the first step, brochures or literature from 110 of 248 counselling/advising agencies located in central Tokyo were examined in this research.The collected materials show the following findings :(1) Agencies provide fairly clear information on the purpose of counselling/advising services, the ways of access to the services, the methods employed in counselling/advising services and the fee.(2) Agencies fail to provide sufficient information on what results could be achieved through the services.(3) Counselling/advising services vary in their principles, methods and achievements.(4) Nothing stated on 'legal issues' relating to the services.Due to the lack of sufficient information above-mentioned, it is likely to happen that the expectation of clients may differ from the services provided by the agencies. In consequence, a client may dispute with the counsellor/advisor for claiming compensation. Judging from the nature of the services stated in the publication of the agencies, 'professional liability' of counsellors/advisers will become the main issue of the disputes in some cases. For the purpose of sorting out such disputes, there are three approaches available ; based on the principle of torts/negligence, contract law and consumer protection low.