Do law firms/lawyers ever get sued for negligence?

[lendaddy]

Does it ever happen or is there a fraternity? For instance if they totally blow the call on a clients case and cost them a big settlement, do they ever get sued when the client realizes this?

[Dueller]

Yes...more and more frequently. In fact there are firms that specialize in legal malpractice.

[Moneyguy1]

Quick answer is Yes. Attorneys carry insurance for such instances, just as other professionals do "Errors and Omissions". I carried it when I was finance advising. Never sued, though.....Also had it for real estate.

Assume that you hire an attorney and the window for legal action is two years. Two years go by and the attorney dos nothing on your case. You have redress.

Yes, there is a "fraternity", but there are also legal recourses available.

I am certain that the attys here can elaborate.

[stomachmonkey]

They have malpractice insurance.

I am currently going after a former attorney that cost me $5 large on a house deal.

Just sold one of my properties in NY and found out the second floor did not have valid CO's, this was on a new build that I was the only one who ever lived in.

Builders plans called the second floor attic but I bought it with bed/bathrooms up there.

I have 4 pages of riders on the contract that specifically addressed things the builder needed to finish in the bed/bathrooms up there.

I almost let it go as a lesson learned till prior attorney shrugged it off as "oh well, sorry bout that but not my problem".

[lendaddy]

I bet juries love to write settlements against PI attorneys

[the]

It happens all the time.

But being lawyers, there are plenty of "safeguards" that make it a little more difficult/appealing.

For ex., in many states the statute of limitations to bring your claim is very short. Sometimes only a year.

And usually your fee agreement with the lawyer will not have an attorney's fee provision. So if you sue them, and win, you still have to pay your own attorney's fees. So if your claim is $100,000, and you spend $100,000 suing him, and "win," you break even.

And there often are mediation/arbitration provisions in the contract, which are designed to stop you from getting your case heard by a jury.

Not all lawyers carry malpractice insurance. If they don't, you will probably have a hard time collecting, even if you win. But if they do, it usually is a decent sized policy you can collect against.

[legion]

Wouldn't it be ironic if trial lawyers John Edwards themselves out of existence?

[Moneyguy1]

We can dream.........

[lendaddy]

Originally Posted by the

It happens all the time.

But being lawyers, there are plenty of "safeguards" that make it a little more difficult/appealing.

For ex., in many states the statute of limitations to bring your claim is very short. Sometimes only a year.

And usually your fee agreement with the lawyer will not have an attorney's fee provision. So if you sue them, and win, you still have to pay your own attorney's fees. So if your claim is $100,000, and you spend $100,000 suing him, and "win," you break even.

And there often are mediation/arbitration provisions in the contract, which are designed to stop you from getting your case heard by a jury.

Not all lawyers carry malpractice insurance. If they don't, you will probably have a hard time collecting, even if you win. But if they do, it usually is a decent sized policy you can collect against.

Sounds like quite the Gauntlet, but not surprising.

[jyl]

Yes, they do get sued.

I defended one such case. Client was a municipal govt, trying to blame its attorneys for a bad business decision. Verdict for defendants.

Was traumatic for the lawyers involved, cost their firm about $1MM in legal fees.

[Jims5543]

I cannot go into detail but I am on the defendant side of total BS lawsuit right now.

I cannot believe the attorney's for the plaintiff even took this case. He has 2 attorney's from the same office retained. God knows what he is paying an hour.

His case is weak, weaker than Pee Wee Herman. Yet, he has probably spent close to 20K trying to sue me for something I did not do nor had any control over.

His attorney's should have told him he has no case, instead they spent 5 hours (3 for me 2 for my 2nd in command) deposing us, the funny part was the stenographer, is was obvious by hour 4 she was as pissed off at the plaintiff as I was. Instead they are running up a huge bill with him and he has nothing. Even after the deposition.

He is spending more money suing me over nothing than if he would have just fixed his problem, that I had nothing to do with. I am guilty of owning a legitimate company with insurance.

I bet he is wonfering why my insurance company has not offered a settlement yet. LOL!! I am not using my insurance! I am paying to defend myself out of pocket, I have a 100% chance of winning this BS lawsuit.

And this is why law firms get sued....

[WI wide body]

Attorneys are probably among the least productive and least useful of any profession in our society. That is why the average American would rate attorneys somewhere between drug dealer and convicted felon on who they would trust the least.

Think about it...if all the tradesmen or all the garbage collectors quit next week we would have a serious problem in less than a month. If all the lawyers quit next week the joy in our nation would be similar to VE Day!

[Dottore]

Your legal system encourages qualities in attorneys that are quite unpleasant. This is not case in all legal systems.

For example, contingency fees combined with ridiculous tort awards encourage speculative litigation. What's not to get about this? What profession in a similar situation would be any different? Imagine how doctors would behave if they could earn a million dollar windfall for taking your appendix out? None of us would have an appendix under those circumstances.

The adversarial approach to litigation also leads to the judicial process essentially being reduced to theater. No one tells the truth. Instead you take "positions" and try to defend them. This is absurd. It is even more absurd when a jury composed of semi-literate "peers" is charged with listening to all of this crap and then deciding where the truth lies. In fact it would be difficult to design a more absurd justice system if you were given a clean sheet of paper. The attorneys are just pawns in this larger game - which is deeply flawed.