Attorneys hold positions of trust. The guidance and advocacy that they provide can help their clients navigate some of the biggest challenges they may ever face. Attorneys advise people about the risks of starting businesses or the value of different types of investments. They help people prepare for divorce proceedings, pursue personal injury lawsuits or respond to allegations of misconduct.
Clients generally rely on their attorneys to help them understand the legal implications of their circumstances and to choose the best path forward. Unfortunately, sometimes lawyers fail to properly communicate with their clients. They may also fail to provide them with the advocacy and support necessary to secure the best possible outcome.
Those directly affected by a lawyer’s mistakes or oversights may sometimes have grounds for a legal malpractice claim. If another attorney could have helped them achieve a better outcome, the issues they experienced could constitute malpractice.
Lawyers’ mistakes can deny people justice
The rules for different criminal and civil matters are different in every jurisdiction. However, the baseline obligations of attorneys remain the same. They have to provide a professional standard of representation, communicate with their clients and refer cases out when doing so is appropriate.
Lawyers who take on cases and then fail to properly manage them for their clients may ultimately do them a significant disservice. A tragic case out of Minnesota is a reminder of how a lawyer’s failures could harm those pursuing justice in the legal system.
A grieving pair of parents intended to pursue a wrongful death lawsuit over professional issues that occurred after their son had an emergency while away at college. Those professional oversights culminated in their son’s potentially preventable death. The family sought to pursue a wrongful death lawsuit.
The attorney in the case waited until the last minute to initiate litigation. More importantly, the attorney failed to advise their clients of certain key requirements for pursuing the wrongful death lawsuit. The result was that the courts dismissed the lawsuit, and the statute of limitations had already passed at that point.
In that case, the clients were able to bring a sizable legal malpractice lawsuit against their attorney for the blown statute of limitations and the failure to advise them of key details that ended up becoming the deciding factors in the initial wrongful death lawsuit. If attorneys fail to take steps that other reasonable professionals understand are necessary, then their actions may constitute malpractice.
Those harmed by a lawyer’s failures may need help pursuing justice through a legal malpractice lawsuit. Reviewing the conduct of an attorney and how it affected the outcome of a legal issue with a malpractice lawyer can help people determine if they have grounds for legal malpractice litigation.