As I recall, Standard Of Care relates to the notion, that we are not held to some arbitrary standard of "perfection," architects will be held to local standards of skill and care.

Exactly - I think "local" is a big part of it. The typical accepted practices of architects in Dubai are going to be different from those in Cleveland.

Interesting topic. We run into this A LOT for forensic/litigation cases and it really is a grey area. The reason it is so tricky is; lets say the architect has one error and omission but that one E&O cost the project a large sum of money, whereas in another instance the architect has ten E&O's but cost the project very little. So is the standard of care dependant on the frequency, the severity, or the resultant costs implications? The answer is not so straightforward as resultant costs could have little correlation with the number and severity of the E&O. It is further complicated by the impact of E&O by scheduling, methods & means, interpretation of documentation, etc; none of which architects control.

slart, i don't know a lot about this, but i had thought e&o liability kicked in after a certain percentage of the overall construction budget was exceeded by e&o related change orders, the threshhold being roughly 1-2%. is that not an accurate impression?

jafidler - I'm not quite clear on exactly what your impression is; i.e. by "liability kicked in" you mean that is the threshold at which the professional is automatically accountable?

From my experience, it ultimately comes down to whether or not the client pursues some kind of claim against the professional. And the legitimacy of that claim (which will be in question) is based on professional work not meeting the standard of care, which is in turn based on a complex and unique set of circumstances, some of which may not be under the control of the design professional.

Well, OK, they don't all have to be complex and unique, but those are the kind of cases I've seen. And when I say "the client pursues some kind of claim against the professional" I don't believe it has to be direct (i.e. Client blames contractor, contractor blames architect).

Slartibartfast is on the right track. "Standard of Care" as it relates to design professionals is, essentially, whatever a jury, judge, arbitrator or mediator says it is at any given point in time. Let me explain. Every jurisdiction (state) will have their own slight variations in how they define Standard of Care, but all will be along the lines of requiring a design professional to provide professional services in a manner that is the same as design professionals operating in the same locality under similar circumstances (i.e., similar type of project) at the same time would have done. How is that determined you ask? A claim is made against the design professional. Assuming that claim is not settled by the design professional, the matter proceeds to any or all of mediation, arbitration and/or litigation. If mediation, a mediator will simply try to get the parties to agree on how to spread the fault and liability around. If that is not successful, then arbitration or litigation may be employed. If arbitration is used, an arbitrator will decide who was at fault and for how much. An arbitrator is not required to follow the contract that may have been executed for the project and does not even have to follow the law. In both arbitration and litigation, both sides (or multiple sides in many cases) will bring evidence and have experts that will all testify. The design professional will have an expert on his side (hopefully!) who will say that he/she did nothing wrong, or at least only did what another design professional in the same situation would have done (i.e. met the Standard of Care). The other side, or sides, will present expert witnesses (typically also a similar design professional that has credentials in doing work similar to the work that is the subject of the claim) who will testify that the defendant design professional did not perform in a manner consistent with how other design professionals in similar circumstances would have done it and, therefore, did not meet the Standard of Care. Then, it is up to the judge, jury or arbitrator to decide which expert, along with other witnesses and evidence, provide the most compelling case. There is no magic percentage of change orders or anything like that. In fact, you can be sure that the plaintiff's side of the case will present each error/omission independently as an incredibly stupid thing for the design professional to have done, regardless of the cost, and then will also say that the sum total of the errors and omissions constitute a horrendous assault on the aggrieved parties. Your defense will be weak if the only thing you can say is..."yes, but we only had 3% change orders." It just doesn't work like that.