Ontario Court of Appeal Confirms Scope of Duty of Care for Drafting Solicitors Remains Narrow
When a loved one dies, disputes over a will often leave disappointed family members searching for someone to blame. Sometimes that means questioning whether the lawyer who prepared the will made a mistake. But as the Ontario Court of Appeal recently confirmed in Stingelin Estate v. Woods, 2026 ONCA 240, the circumstances in which someone can successfully sue a drafting solicitor are much narrower than many people realize.
The case arose from a complicated family trust dispute. The estate trustee of a deceased woman alleged that a lawyer retained by his aunt to prepare her will had given him inaccurate legal advice during two meetings and had failed to ensure that the aunt’s estate plan reflected what he believed were the family’s intentions. After earlier litigation determined that certain trust property belonged to the aunt’s estate—not to the estate he represented—he sued the lawyer for negligence and breach of fiduciary duty.
The claim was dismissed on summary judgment, and the Court of Appeal upheld that decision.
The Court concluded that the lawyer owed no duty of care to the plaintiff. She had been retained solely by the aunt, never acted for the plaintiff, and never undertook to protect his interests. The Court also found that the plaintiff’s alleged losses flowed from an earlier court decision resolving the ownership of the trust property—not from anything the lawyer had done. In any event, the claim had also been started too late.
The most significant aspect of the decision is the Court’s discussion of who may sue a lawyer who prepares a will.
As a general rule, lawyers owe their professional duties to their own clients—not to family members, disappointed beneficiaries, or others who may be affected by the legal work. Over the years, courts have recognized a limited exception in the wills context. Where a lawyer negligently prepares a will and, as a result, an identifiable person whom the testator intended to benefit loses that inheritance, that intended beneficiary may, in some circumstances, have a claim against the lawyer.
The Court of Appeal emphasized that this exception remains exactly that: an exception. It declined to expand the duty of care beyond those narrow circumstances.
For potential claimants, that distinction is critical. It is not enough to believe that a different will should have been prepared or that different legal advice might have produced a better outcome. Nor is it enough simply to be disappointed by the contents of a will. A claimant must generally be able to show that the deceased actually intended to benefit them and that the lawyer’s negligence prevented those intentions from being properly carried into effect.
That approach reflects an important policy choice. Estate planning frequently involves competing family interests, changing instructions, and difficult conversations. A lawyer’s undivided loyalty must remain with the client—the person giving the instructions. Expanding liability to anyone who claims to have been affected by those instructions would create conflicts that could undermine that relationship and expose solicitors to potentially limitless claims from third parties.
For estate planning lawyers, the decision is a helpful reminder that careful documentation of instructions, retainers, and communications remains essential. The narrow exception recognized by the courts still exists, and where an intended beneficiary loses an inheritance because a lawyer negligently failed to implement the client’s instructions, liability may still follow.
For everyone else, however, Stingelin serves as an important reminder that not every disappointing estate outcome gives rise to a claim against the lawyer who prepared the will. Before pursuing such a claim, it is important to understand not only what went wrong, but also whether the law recognizes that the lawyer owed you a duty in the first place.