Professional Liability of Counsellor : Socio-Legal Perspectives

这项研究是主要研究的第一阶段，主要研究的目的是对那些难以与家人或朋友保持“良好”关系的客户提供的咨询/建议服务的性质进行社会法律研究。特别是，主要的研究集中在辅导员/顾问的作用以及当他们的援助被声称对其客户造成损害时他们的专业责任。本研究首先对东京市中心248家咨询机构中的110家机构的宣传册或资料进行了调查，结果表明：（1）咨询机构对咨询服务的目的、获得咨询服务的途径、咨询服务的方法和费用等都提供了较为明确的信息。(2)各机构未能提供足够的信息，说明通过这些服务可以取得哪些成果。(3)辅导/咨询服务的原则、方法和成果各不相同。(4)没有说明与服务有关的“法律的问题”。由于缺乏上述足够的信息，很可能会发生客户的期望可能与代理商提供的服务不同。因此，客户可能会与辅导员/顾问就索赔提出争议。从这些机构公布的服务性质来看，在某些情况下，辅导员/顾问的“专业责任”将成为争议的主要问题。为了解决这类纠纷，有三种方法可供选择：基于侵权/过失原则、合同法和消费者保护法。

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.