LEGAL MALPRACTICE

Lawyers make mistakes. Mistakes are inevitable in a profession as complex and difficult as the law. Most of the time, the mistakes can be corrected, or are not too costly. But, there are times when the error or errors are so serious or pervasive that they seriously damage or even destroy the client’s case. That is when a mistake becomes a legal malpractice case. Legal malpractice, over charging and ethics problems are not confined to “bad lawyers”, or solo attorneys. Good lawyers in large, well respected firms also commit malpractice, overcharge and are more likely to find themselves in conflict of interest situations than smaller firms.

Legal malpractice is just another way of saying a lawyer was negligent in handling a client’s case. More technically, it is when the attorney has so badly handled a matter or so poorly represented a client that the lawyer’s conduct has fallen below the standard of care of other attorneys in the area handling similar cases.

There are many different ways in which malpractice can occur and it covers every single area of law, from acquisitions to zoning. Sometimes the nature of the malpractice is clear. For example, an attorney misses a critical statute of limitations and the client’s case is lost forever. Usually though, it’s not quite that simple; the wrongful conduct is more subtle and almost always requires expert legal witnesses to establish the malpractice.

Whether the malpractice is clear or complicated, when a lawyer’s conduct has lost or caused damage to a client’s case, it becomes necessary to not only prove that the lawyer was negligent, but also prove what the outcome of the case would have been in the absence of the lawyer’s negligence. This is commonly referred to as the “case within the case” factor. Often, this requires trying the underlying case in the trial of the legal malpractice case. This is one of the reasons why lawyer malpractice cases are both difficult and expensive to handle. Because of the difficulty and expense involved in handling legal malpractice cases, and/or because the standard of proof is very difficult in certain cases, we don’t handle malpractice cases involving criminal law, worker’s compensation law or family law (including divorce).

FEE DISPUTES

BREACH OF FIDUCIARY DUTY AND ETHICAL VIOLATIONS