Legal Malarectice And Malpractices

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Recommended: medical malpractice and how patients and physicians are affected

Deadlines are key components of the legal process. Within every case, a lawyer is required to meet frequent deadlines. For instance, there are discovery deadlines, deadlines to file or object to certain motions brought by opposing counsel, deadlines involving the statute of limitations, deadlines for the disclosure of witnesses, and deadlines to pay or post fees with the Court. A deadline missed may be deadly to your case. If a lawyer misses a deadline, it is within the scope of possibility that it could cause the client to lose their case. Missing a deadline or the statute of limitations in a client’s case is negligence. Any such failure could be grounds for a legal malpractice lawsuit.
According to the ABA, missed deadlines continue to be a major source of claims of legal malpractice and malpractice cases involving missed deadlines are nearly impossible to defend. Any chance at a defense has to turn on the assertion that the underlying case was meritless or of little value in the first place. Such a claim is not going to be easy to show in a court room (if it were meritless, the lawyer probably wouldn’t have taken on the matter in the first place!).
For a client to win against an attorney for malpractice, they need only show that the lawyer owed them a duty to provide competent, skillful representation, that they breached that duty (by acting carelessly and missing a deadline), that the breach caused the client harm, and that but for their incompetent lawyering the client could have prevailed.
II. ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct Requirements
The Model Rules of Professional Conduct (MRPC) sets forth in the preamble that:
[4] In all professional functions a lawyer should be competent, prompt and diligent. A lawyer sh...

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...c. ALWAYS look it up for yourself! A failure to know the law is never an excuse. Doing a little research is worth the time when assuming could result in a malpractice suit.
Another way to avoid the risk of malpractice is to send out non-engagement letters to people who walk into your office with a claim that you choose not to represent. Such a letter provides you with evidence that you did not take the case and therefore cannot be held to the deadlines (statute of limitations) associated with filing the matter.
V. Conclusion
The bottom line is that missed deadlines continue to make up a sizable chunk of all legal malpractice claims. Thus, to be a good lawyer and avoid the stress of such a claim, it’s important to have a plan and learn how to manage the risks associated with the practice of law. By doing so, all deadlines should be observed and never missed.

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