Were you the plaintiff or defendant in a civil lawsuit without the outcome you had expected or hoped for? You lost the case, or you had to pay money damages or higher damages than expected. On the other side, maybe you anticipated getting more money or relief than you...
Florida Legal Malpractice Law Blog
Client challenges lawyers’ handling of Gatlinburg fire lawsuit
An attorney or law firm can make a negligent mistake in almost any area of law if they breach their reasonable duty of care to their client. When legal malpractice occurs during litigation, the client can suffer severe losses, mostly financial. Depending on the nature...
Legal malpractice: Expert testimony on a lawyer’s duty of care
We often write in this space about the required elements of a legal malpractice claim. Broadly, in an attorney-client relationship, the lawyer has a reasonable duty of care in the representation of the client. If legal counsel negligently breaches their duty of care...
Case-within-a-case: Did your lawyer mishandle your lawsuit?
For a legal dispute to make it to court, it is normally a major event to those involved on both sides of the conflict – whether plaintiff or defendant. So many factors influence the nature of what is at stake: Is the suit personal or commercial? Are the potential...
Missing a legal filing deadline may seem minor, but it could cost you
When you retain a lawyer to represent you in a lawsuit or other legal matter, you have the reasonable expectation that the attorney will protect your interests and carry out their professional responsibilities to you with due care. Certainly, you should not have to...
Conflicts of interest: A client is not a needle in a law firm’s haystack, part 2
In part 1 of this post, we introduced readers to RevoLaze LLC v. Dentons US LLP, a recent Ohio case in which a jury awarded a client more than $32 million in compensatory damages for losses related to their law firm’s failure to disclose a major conflict of interest....
Splitting hairs: Attorney conflicts of interest among clients, part 1
A lawyer has an unflinching duty of loyalty to their clients. That duty only has teeth when the attorney’s allegiance is not torn between two or more clients with adverse interests. In that situation, legal counsel cannot advocate freely and without reserve for one of...
As COVID-19 heated up, so did the severity of legal malpractice claims
The legal industry had to make significant adjustments to continue to serve clients during the pandemic, which raises the question of what impact that has had on attorney malpractice. According to one survey beginning in 2019 but completed during mid-2020 when the...
Can your lawyer be liable for leaving out an important provision in a contract?
Were you harmed because your attorney did not include a key term in a business agreement or personal contract? Failure to include a crucial contractual provision may be the basis for a legal malpractice, attorney negligence or breach of fiduciary duty claim if it...
Did you lose a lawsuit because of your attorney’s negligence?
When the verdict goes against you in court, it can be shocking – and expensive. This is especially upsetting if you believe it was because of your lawyer’s negligence. An attorney has an ongoing duty when representing a client in litigation to exercise reasonable care...