Leading Causes of Legal Malpractice
The American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Lawyers’ Professional Liability conducted a study in 2010 that examined 42,076 legal malpractice claims and the reasons they occurred. More than one-half of all claims resulted from lawyer ignorance, inattention or laziness. The top 7 reasons clients sued their attorneys were:
- Failure to know or apply the law
- Planning error
- Inadequate discovery or investigation
- Failure to file documents
- Failure to calendar
- Failure to know a deadline
- Procrastination
Lawyers certainly lose client cases due to other types of carelessness, but these are the major reasons. If you lost a significant case due to what you believe is an attorney’s mistake or neglect, you should contact a legal malpractice attorney right away. Time is a critical factor. In 2016 alone, the Rhode Island Supreme Court and Rhode Island Superior Court dismissed legal malpractice cases because the client did not proceed diligently and timely file their cases.
