Legal Blog
Legal Malpractice Claims: What Happens When a Lawyer Makes an Error
Malpractice isn't only for medical professionals. Legal malpractice also exists. Legal malpractice occurs when a legal professional makes a serious error. A client that ends up in jail or doesn't win a suit due to severe malpractice on their lawyer's part can choose to file a malpractice lawsuit against their former lawyer.
Malpractice requires that the lawyer made serious errors that other lawyers, under ordinary circumstances, would not have made.
Just because a lawsuit isn't won doesn't mean that malpractice occurred.
"Malpractice and negligence claims may arise when a professional such as an attorney, a physician, a dentist, or even an engineer does not exercise reasonable care when dealing with a client or patient," claims personal injury attorney Bary L. Gassman.
If the facts are not in your favor, the lawyer is not to blame if your case is lost.
Malpractice Must Be ProvenProving malpractice is difficult, and it requires that four basic things occur during representation:
- The lawyer had a duty to you
- The duty was breached due to a mistake, negligence or performing an action that was agreed not to perform
- Conduct led to a financial loss, or causation
- The actions of the lawyer resulted in financial loss or damages
Malpractice is difficult to prove because the first step is proving that the attorney made an error. After which, you must prove that the case would have been won if the mistakes had not been made. The final step is to prove that if the case was won, you would have collected from the defendant.
Lawyers can protect themselves from malpractice by following the law and offering good customer service. A lot of malpractice claims stem from avoidable practices, including:
- 1.Lawyers who stop working on a case. Attorneys who start to ignore their clients can cause the case to be lost.
- 2.Lawyers failing to perform the required amount of work to win a case. All too often, lawyers become overworked and fail to work hard enough to win their clients' cases.
- 3.Lawyers fail to ask their clients for authorization to settle a case. But keep in mind that the lawyer may provide an error in the case's estimated settlement, and in this case, would not be held liable for malpractice.
- 4.Lawyers squander the money that is put into a retainer. This means that the lawyer used the funds in the retainer for an expenditure that is not related to the case.
The ABA has a list of the most common legal malpractice claims against legal professionals. By far, the most common issue is that the lawyer either failed to know the law or failed to apply the law properly.
Planning errors are the second most common error made in a legal malpractice claim.
Lawyers that do not meet the requirements to take a case ought to refer their client to another professional that adequately knows the required area of law.
Clients will be required to hire another lawyer to fight their malpractice claim.
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