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When Life Coaches Get Sued
The estimated 53,000 professional coaches practicing worldwide in the nearly $2.4 billion industry of professional coaching have a public perception problem: people often don’t really know what coaches do. That’s one of the conclusions identified in a market research study recently conducted by the International Coaching Federation (ICF). Add to that problem the fact that anybody can introduce themselves to you as a coach — no specific training, license, or educational background is required by law — and it’s no wonder the public is confused about the benefits and quality of coaching.
That said, several professional coaching associations have taken on a self-regulatory role as a way of adding more credibility, reliability, and gravitas to the work their members do. ICF is the largest of those associations, and to become ICF-certified at the most basic level, a coach must complete course-based training, a rigorous supervised practicum, and several written and oral exams, all of which pay significant attention to a coaching code of ethics.
A large part of being an ethical coaching professional is understanding and anticipating legal risks. Current and aspiring coaches should be aware of the particular features of their discipline that may land them in a court of law defending against the claims of a former client. Most of the publicly available lawsuits against coaches fall into two broad categories: (1) breach of contract, and (2) tort (including claims of negligence, fraud, misrepresentation, and infliction of emotional distress). Cases falling under these categories are described below.
Breach of Contract
One reason for the public perception problem is that a contract for coaching services has more nebulous outcomes than, say, a contract for legal or landscaping services. After all, in the ICF Sample Agreement, the subject matter of the contract is described this way:
Coaching is a partnership (defined as an alliance, not a legal business partnership) between the Coach and the Client in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires the client to maximize personal and professional potential. It is designed to facilitate the creation/development of personal, professional or business goals and to develop and carry out a strategy/plan for achieving those…
