Recently, insurance broker Ames & Gough released the findings of a study indicating that legal malpractice insurers experienced an increase in claims for 2012 – most especially in claims that exceeded $50 million.
Legal malpractice suits can stem from a variety of sources that run the gamut from blatant incompetency to a missed deadline for a court filing. From a soiled professional reputation to severe financial consequences, legal malpractice suits nearly always have serious ramifications that require expensive remedy.
The term “legal malpractice” may include all or one of the following: breach of contract by an attorney, negligence, or breach of fiduciary duty. When evaluating legal malpractice cases, or the potential for a legal malpractice suit, it is important to discern whether these actions caused harm to the client, most especially with regard to breach of contract. Further, it is the burden of proving that these actions were in fact negligent, and were it “but for” said actions, the outcome would have had a favorable outcome. Having said that, while losing a case certainly isn’t immediate grounds for negligence, a lost case due to a carelessly missed deadline for filing a document with the court may very well engender a legal malpractice suit. The importance of having an online source that simplifies the complicated arena of local rules, such as SmartRules.com, cannot be underestimated.
In general, legal malpractice cases are usually difficult to prove and costly to resolve; the grieved party needs to establish that his or her attorney made a mistake or acted outside of the boundaries of what is reasonable.
For more information about local rules and deadlines in your jurisdiction, visit www.smartrules.com.