Legal Malpractice

Legal malpractice has become a cause of concern for law fraternity in the recent few years owing to increasing incidents of lawsuits being filed against attorneys. Blame it on the increasing workload on lawyers or the carelessness stepping in judiciary, lawyers are paying thousands of dollars for their administrative failures or poor communication with their clients.

Why are Attorneys Getting Sued?

All lawyers are bound by work ethics in their respective state judiciaries. They have to remain loyal and professional to their clients following highest standards of integrity and honesty. Lawyers have to be careful in all dealings with the clients as any information leak of the client, even if the lawyer client relationship is no more, can become a cause of legal lawsuit against the attorney. Why are increasingly large number of people filing cases against lawyers. Well, while some cases are certainly genuine, there are various others that lack substance and they are merely filed to defame a lawyer or earn easy money. Here are some major reasons why even the lawyers are under scanner of the law.

Your Negligence Cost Me Dearly
Categorized as negligent errors, this is the most important reason for all lawsuits filed against attorneys. This constitutes administrative failures, chief among them being failure to meet the deadlines (or known as the legal malpractice statute of limitations), procrastination, missing evidence files, improper investigation and conflict of interest.

You Didn't Communicate To Me the Right Thing
Many a time, poor client lawyer relationship proves to be the nemesis for the entire case. Poor communication is cited to be a major reason for misunderstandings between the attorney and client. Sometimes, clients don't disclose all the realities of a case openly and half way through the case, they suddenly bring in new facets to the case, making it difficult for the attorney to handle the case. Similarly, often attorneys take clients casually misjudging the expectations of the client. Unprofessional attitude in law field is a disaster and can force a dissatisfied client to file a lawsuit against the lawyer.

You Charged Me Twice Your Normal Fee
If a client loses a case and doesn't pay the attorney his fee, the attorney files a case against the client. The client in return uses the malpractice suit to sue the lawyer. It becomes more like a suing game, instead of some real lawsuit. Sometimes, clients accuse attorneys of asking more fees and not giving desired results. Incidents like these are decreasing faster because lawyers are stepping back to sue clients for fee recovery. The cost to fight the case for fee recovery is often more than recovery fee making the recovery case futile.

You Will Pay for Your Malicious Interests
The most serious lawsuits are filed against lawyers who are involved in theft, fraud or manipulation of evidences or taking bribe from the opposition party. Attorneys doing such crimes face the threat of criminal prosecution and very stern punishments.

They Sued You
Even a third party can sue an attorney on charges of defamation, abuse of process and malicious prosecution or as in law terminology, these are called TORT claims. If the third party feels that the opposition lawyer has tried to manipulate the case or has caused some sort of personal or emotional loss to them while representing the client, the third party sues the attorney.

To file a lawsuit against attorney and win them is not an easy task. You have to first complain against the lawyer in the state bar council, which then takes matter into its purview and investigates the case. For attorneys, financial security and reputation matters a lot and it can get a serious setback due to lawsuits filed against them. As legal malpractice cases have risen in the past years, lawyers are leaving no stone unturned to go for some best insurance policies.