Legal Malpractice
When you hire an attorney you trust that they will represent you to the best of their ability. Unfortunately, there are occasions where lawyers do not properly represent their clients’ interests and breach this trust. We believe that when this happens the clients deserve compensation from their lawyers. We will fight to ensure that justice is done. Malpractice is not a bad result in a case. Sometimes bad results occur despite vigorous representation. A lawyer commits Legal Malpractice when they fail to provide adequate legal services to a client.
In general a legal malpractice suit must prove the following elements:
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A valid attorney/client relationship. Generally, in order to recover on a claim for legal malpractice, the client must demonstrate the existence of an employment relationship between the attorney and the client.
- The attorney neglected a reasonable duty owed to the client.
- A breach of that duty. A lawyer breaches his or her professional duty when they fail to provide reasonably competent representation and/or when they fail to keep their client’s information confidential and/or do not disclose conflicts of interest.
- The client also needs to prove that they would have won the underlying matter but for the attorney’s neglect
- Additionally, the Client must establish the amount of damages.
Legal malpractice cases present complexities and challenges unlike other tort cases. They essentially require the litigator to assemble and prove a case within a case. Recent legislation and the mandate of compulsory legal malpractice insurance in many states has been responsible for making legal malpractice claims one of the largest growing areas of tort litigation in the past decade.
Types of legal malpractice cases include:
- Negligence- where the attorney’s conduct is judged as to whether it met the “standard of care” expected of other attorneys in the area;
- Breach of contract- when an attorney is retained by a client, there are implicit and explicit agreements as to the scope of the work to be performed, the manner in which it is to be done and the obligation of the parties and
- Fraud- involves the intentional misrepresentation of material facts, which adversely affect the client, and conversion of moneys or property of a client, which may take a few forms.
If you believe that you or a loved one may have been a victim of legal malpractice, our attorneys are here to discuss your legal rights. Our office includes an experienced legal malpractice team highly knowledgeable regarding the standard of care that legal practitioners must abide by.
Additionally, the Sander’s Law firm accepts the referral of legal malpractice cases and gladly pays the referring attorney a referral fee upon the successful conclusion of each case referred to us pursuant to and in accordance with applicable rules. The firm is available to discuss potential legal malpractice claims and looks forward to working with counsel on a referral basis.
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