Most of us learn very early in life that bad consequences can attach to tardiness.
Turn in that book report late — get a failing grade. Dawdle in the departure lounge — miss your flight. Forgo punctuality at work — lose your job.
Life’s lessons can be tough. And the outcome can be severe for an individual when an allotted task is not duly attended to or completed on time.
Most people take the instruction to heart and are fairly conscientious about things like last calls and deadlines by the time they reach adulthood. Again, they have to be.
As serious as the repercussions can personally be for an individual who mucks up a deadline or appointment, they can sometimes be far worse for a third party who is depending upon that person for timely performance.
And that can be especially true where professional services are rendered, since clients who pay for the specialized knowledge and performance of a professional are justifiably relying upon some materially important thing to be done.
And on time.
Consider a case where a retained attorney flat out misses a court-imposed deadline.
Might the consequences of such failed professionalism be serious for a client?
Indeed, they can be, as is evidenced by stories that routinely surface in California and across the country regarding the detriment suffered by a client owing to his or her attorney’s failure to timely act.
Sloppy attorney performance can breed mistrust and a tense attorney-client relationship. It can render representation dysfunctional and deficient. A late filing can even cause a relevant statute of limitations to lapse, resulting in the dismissal of a client’s case.
Attorneys have a so-called fiduciary duty to their clients to always act in their best interests. Failure to uphold their end of the bargain is a breach of trust that, when resulting in client damages, constitutes actionable legal malpractice that can yield a money recovery for an injured consumer.
A proven plaintiffs’ legal malpractice attorney can provide further information.