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What
Makes a Good Legal Malpractice Case? |
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What
Makes a Good Legal Malpractice Case? |
It would be difficult to simply make a list of the types of legal malpractice cases that are good or bad. Each case is unique and needs to be considered on its own particular facts. But there are certain issues we must carefully review before deciding if we can accept your case. Since legal malpractice cases are so expensive and time consuming to pursue one of the first questions we need to address is whether the case is economically justifiable. It might cost tens of thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket expenses and take two or three years to pursue your legal malpractice case to conclusion. If your potential case only involves the mishandling of a minor matter, or the problem created by the lawyer was eventually able to be corrected, then that may not be a good legal malpractice case to pursue. No lawyer would want to risk two years of his time and $40,000 of his money on the possibility that he might recover $5,000 in damages for his client. No client would reasonably want to pursue that type of case either. Unfortunately, legitimate small-damage legal malpractice claims may be inappropriate law suits simply because the cost to the malpractice lawyer, and the potential benefit to the client, do not justify a lengthy, expensive legal battle.
Assuming the damages are large enough to justify bringing suit, we must also carefully determine if there is liability, i.e. did the action or inaction of the first lawyer fall below the professional standard of care and did it lead to the damage complained of. We will most likely have to hire one or more lawyers as expert witnesses to testify on this issue. Usually at least one expert will be hired before the suit is filed and additional experts are often hired before the case proceeds to trial. If the malpractice was in connection with handling a law suit, then we may need to hire expert witnesses to testify about the issues in the underlying law suit. For example, if you want to sue your first lawyer for missing the statute of limitations for handling a medical malpractice case, we would likely need to hire doctors as expert witnesses, to help prove that the medical malpractice case was legitimate and you would have won it. This would be in addition to hiring one or more lawyers as an expert to to testify that it was negligence for the first lawyer to miss the statute of limitations.
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This site contains only general background information and is not intended to constitute specific legal advice or establish an attorney/client relationship. Malpractice laws vary from state to state and are constantly changing. If you think you may have a malpractice case you should promptly contact a lawyer in your state with experience in handling malpractice cases. |
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