Legal malpractice

Legal malpractice

Legal malpractice is the term for negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, or breach of contract by an attorney that causes harm to his or her client. In order to rise to an actionable level of negligence, the injured party must show that the attorney's acts were not merely the result of poor strategy, but that they were the result of errors that no reasonable attorney would make. Furthermore, legal malpractice requires the showing of an injury that would not have happened had the attorney not been negligent. If the injury might have occurred despite different (non-negligent) actions by the attorney, no cause of action will be permitted. Legal malpractice can also occur when an attorney breaches a fiduciary duty to his or her client. This occurs when attorneys act in their own interest instead of to their client's, to the detriment of their client. A claim for legal malpractice may also arise when an attorney breaches the contract they sign with their client.

A common basis for a legal malpractice claim arises where an attorney misses a deadline for a filing of a paper with the court, and this error is related to the ending of the case.

Few lawyers will bring malpractice suits against their own, the other members of their profession. Consequently, cases of legal malpractice are rare in comparison to other types of professional malpractice (such as medical malpractice or breaches of fiduciary duty).

References

* [http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/attorney-malpractice.html Description of Attorney Malpractice]

ee also

* Ineffective assistance of counsel
* Malpractice
* Professional responsibility


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужна курсовая?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • legal malpractice — See: malpractice Category: Accidents & Injuries Category: Small Claims Court & Lawsuits Category: Working With a Lawyer Nolo’s Plain English Law Dictionary. Gerald N. Hill, Kathleen Thompson Hill. 2009 …   Law dictionary

  • malpractice — mal·prac·tice /ˌmal prak təs/ n: negligence, misconduct, lack of ordinary skill, or a breach of duty in the performance of a professional service (as in medicine) resulting in injury or loss Merriam Webster’s Dictionary of Law. Merriam Webster.… …   Law dictionary

  • malpractice — mal‧prac‧tice [ˌmælˈprækts] noun [countable, uncountable] LAW when someone breaks the rules of their profession or breaks the law in order to gain some advantage for themselves: • He accused the attorneys of legal malpractice. • Insider trading… …   Financial and business terms

  • malpractice — Professional misconduct or unreasonable lack of skill. This term is usually applied to such conduct by doctors, lawyers, and accountants. Failure of one rendering professional services to exercise that degree of skill and learning commonly… …   Black's law dictionary

  • malpractice — Professional misconduct or unreasonable lack of skill. This term is usually applied to such conduct by doctors, lawyers, and accountants. Failure of one rendering professional services to exercise that degree of skill and learning commonly… …   Black's law dictionary

  • Malpractice — For other uses, see Malpractice (disambiguation). Tort law …   Wikipedia

  • malpractice, legal — n. Failure by an attorney to use the degree of skill or care that should ordinarily be exercised in a situation. The Essential Law Dictionary. Sphinx Publishing, An imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc. Amy Hackney Blackwell. 2008 …   Law dictionary

  • malpractice — n. legal; medical; professional malpractice * * * [ˌmæl præktɪs] medical professional malpractice legal …   Combinatory dictionary

  • legal ethics — Introduction       principles of conduct that members of the legal profession are expected to observe in their practice. They are an outgrowth of the development of the legal profession itself. Background       Practitioners of law emerged when… …   Universalium

  • malpractice insurance — Liability *insurance taken by external auditors to cover potential legal action by *auditees (and others) dissatisfied with the auditor’s work. From the 1980s the suing of external auditors has become increasingly common, and in addition to… …   Auditor's dictionary

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
… Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”