It’s unfair to have to deal with an attorney who doesn’t respect your time. It’s not your responsibility to call multiple times to get updates when your attorney should be responding to your call the first time. It’s not fair for you to wonder if they’re going to meet deadlines or to find out that they didn’t meet important deadlines, leaving you without the ability to make your case in court.
When an attorney violates their agreement with you and leaves you with few legal avenues to pursue, you may want to discuss the situation with another attorney and consider filing a legal malpractice lawsuit.
What should you expect when you contact another attorney about legal malpractice?
To start with, make sure you talk to an attorney who specializes in legal malpractice. This is a special area of the law that not every advocate will handle.
Your new attorney will want to know as much about your case as possible, so keep information such as the dates you called your previous attorney, their response times, copies of bills, the dates of any missed submissions or errors and other important items that you’ll need to discuss.
Not every bad outcome in a legal setting is a sign of malpractice. Court is, after all, somewhat of a gamble. However, if your legal position was harmed by an attorney’s lax attitude toward their responsibilities, you may have a case. If your new attorney feels that legal malpractice may be an issue, then they will talk to you more about how you can move forward and seek compensation for what you’ve been through.