Any lawyer who believes that his or her rights are paramount to those of a client who is being legally represented is flatly in the wrong business. And likely to get in a fair amount of trouble. The legal publication California Lawyer recently published a set of...
A Law Firm Known For Getting Results
Year: 2015
How do I know if my attorney committed malpractice?
Just because your previous attorney did a less than stellar job does not necessarily mean you have a case for legal malpractice. However, lawyers in California are held to professional and ethical standards. A violation of that duty may mean you can recover some of...
Looking for a classic case of attorney misconduct? Here’s one.
Occasionally a case regarding attorney misconduct will emerge with such force and clarity that it provides an instant learning opportunity for clarifying what constitutes legal malpractice. Today's blog post sketches the material details of such a case. Although the...
Topical look: emotional distress in legal malpractice lawsuit
Below is a fact pattern involving a litigant's legal malpractice lawsuit filed in a state other than California. We pass along the key details involving the matter because we believe them to be materially and broadly relevant to any malpractice blog. Any California...
ABA panel addresses conduct that gives rise to malpractice claims
One panel member at a recent American Bar Association conference noted to an attorney audience that, "How you treat your client will influence how your client treats you when things go wrong." Isn't that so patently obvious as to be a truism? And yet, it seems that...
Attorney conflicts of interest can be very harmful to clients
What happens in legal matters can impact a person on a very deep level. Thus, when a person entrusts an attorney to help them with a legal issue, a lot is riding on the attorney acting in the person's best interests and doing what they are supposed to in their...
Why might a statute of limitations be important in my case?
Imagine how devastating the following scenario -- which plays out with some regularity -- can be for a would-be litigant with a valid legal claim and a strong case for a damage recovery. And say that litigant is you. You have suffered a personal injury that is closely...
Law firm misconduct alleged in federal hacking-related lawsuit
One core tenet of American law stresses its fundamental fairness, which, given the highly unequal powers and resources that two parties can bring to a judicial dispute, is a flat-out imperative to help obtain an equitable legal outcome. As one federal claim recently...
Lawyers apologize, pay settlement in discredited litigation
In a recent media article chronicling a case of never-really-happened sexual misconduct involving movie executives and young boys, a law school professor notes the subsequently withdrawn litigation filed by a plaintiff's attorneys and terms the incident "a cautionary...
Legal representation: Can a conflict of interest be waived?
Any person in California or elsewhere who retains an attorney for representation in a legal matter has a clear and compelling expectation that his or her lawyer will render counsel that is not undermined in any manner by a conflict of interest. Indeed, a conflict...