Legal Malpractice

Many residents in Los Angeles County and elsewhere across California might reasonably lack much knowledge regarding the legal canons and standards that govern the practice of law in the state. After all, when a person needs a lawyer, he or she is most concerned with...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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sexual misconduct involving movie executives and young boys, a law school professor notes the subsequently withdrawn litigation filed by a plaintiff's attorneys and terms the incident "a cautionary...

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...

An online media primer on client-lawyer interaction states at the very outset that any person who retains legal counsel might be pondering afterwards "what to expect with regards to lawyer communication, competence, ethics, and fees." Do you really think so?...