Professional malpractice can occur in almost any industry where people must have advanced degrees, years of experience and state licensing to perform their jobs. Legal malpractice is more common than people might realize. There are a number of scenarios that could potentially constitute legal malpractice.
Unethical behavior, including providing poor representation due to conflicts of interest, could lead to allegations of legal malpractice. Other times, negligence could be the underlying reason for clients to take action against a former attorney. Negligence entails failing to do what another reasonable person with similar training and experience might recognize as necessary in the same situation.
The following are some of the more common ways that negligence could affect legal representation.
1. Lacking insight into applicable statutes
Occasionally, lawyers offer support to clients in a broad range of practice areas. Instead of cultivating deep knowledge and experience in one specific area of law, they try to make their practice as broad as possible. This approach can be effective in many cases, but it may also lead to a lack of in-depth knowledge about different areas of law. Attorneys who have only occasionally practiced one type of law may only have baseline knowledge about state and federal statutes that may apply. They may then offer inappropriate guidance or ineffective advocacy to their clients.
2. Ignorance of relevant judicial precedents
Attorneys researching legal issues for their clients need to know more than just the law. They also need to review relevant rulings in the state and federal court systems. Judicial precedent influences how the courts interpret the law and respond to different legal issues. Prior rulings could clarify how the courts should address certain types of contract disputes or the appropriate allocation of liability in certain scenarios. Lawyers who are unfamiliar with relevant precedents related to a client’s concerns may develop legal strategies that ultimately prove unsuccessful due to their lack of knowledge and insight.
3. Failing to meet court requirements
Clients don’t just rely on lawyers to provide them with advice or to speak on their behalf in court. They also need their lawyers to manage the court process. Clients expect attorneys to appropriately execute necessary paperwork when petitioning the courts or responding to a pending legal issue. Attorneys should know how to compile appropriate paperwork, as well as when and where to submit the documents that they produce. Failing to initiate a lawsuit before the statute of limitations expires is an example of negligence. Lawyers are largely aware that there is a limited opportunity to take legal action, and the failure to advise a client of that deadline and effectively meet it could constitute malpractice.
Clients who suffer verifiable economic setbacks due to major mistakes made by their lawyers may potentially have grounds for legal malpractice lawsuits. Proving that a lawyer violated their professional obligations to a client could help those clients hold an attorney accountable for the consequences of their professional shortcomings.