An Overview Of Legal Malpractice

Legal malpractice is defined as an act of negligence by a lawyer that costs considerably to his client. The interesting aspect of a case of legal malpractice against lawyer is that it is yet another lawyer who fights against the lawyer accused of legal malpractice.

When we first read the term malpractice, the first impression that we get is incompetency on the part of an attorney while giving legal service to a client. As a lawyer, a person is expected to be prudent, have sufficient knowledge, and skills, so that atleast a minimum level of required legal services is maintained. But if the lawyer fails to maintain this too, it can be referred to as a case of legal malpractice.

A client retains a lawyer, because of his superior legal qualifications, reputation in the field of law and other legal skills acquired with experience. The client places complete trust and faith in his/her lawyer. Apart from providing facts and figures to his/her lawyer, the client also religiously follows each and every legal advice of the lawyer. So, any act of negligence by the lawyer in his legal advice to a client surely calls for appropriate compensation to the client.

So, you should be careful about some aspects, before you choose a lawyer. You should realize that it is not essential that every lawyer is a good lawyer. You should always go by the competency of the lawyer and not by his demeanour.

This you can do through a good study of the lawyers background. You should ask as many questions as you can .See how much expertise he has in cases similar to that of yours. Also make a good note of the number of cases won by the lawyer and the number of cases lost by him/her.

In most legal malpractice cases that are won against a lawyer, the cause for filing such a legal malpractice case is an utter blunder or mistake on the part of that lawyer that leads to his/her client losing a case, which could have been easily won by the client, except for the above negligence on the part of the lawyer.

Other causes for legal malpractice cases are those in which the client suffers from huge financial losses entirely due to negligence by his/her lawyer.

The rarest reason for a legal malpractice case is emotional distress. Except in cases of fraud, emotional distress as a reason for filing a legal malpractice case against a lawyer does not see favourable results for his/her client.

To prove legal malpractice against lawyer is not that easy. If you do not even have a single chance to win the reference legal case on whose basis, you have filed the legal malpractice case against your lawyer, the filing of such a legal malpractice case against your lawyer is worthless.

In some cases, lawyers are even given a second chance to fight the reference legal case, with the same evidence and the same witnesses, so that if there had been any fault in the earlier presentation that could be corrected then by the lawyer.

There may be many instances of cases in which the interpretation of law by the lawyer and the judge could vary. As law is quite a complex subject, it is not essential that everyone interprets it in the same way. So, in such cases legal malpractice against lawyer cannot be filed.