About Legal Malpractice

Although legal malpractice is generally referred to as attorney negligence, it can occur in any area of the law and can take many forms such as simple negligence, gross negligence, negligence per se, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, and violations.

Clients can be damaged by lawyers in many ways such as:

• Neglect -missing a statute of limitation, failing to conduct and respond to discovery, failing to designate experts and/or proper witnesses
• Lawyer's conflict of interest-putting the lawyer's interests above a client's or putting one client's interest over another's
• Drafting errors in documents and/or agreements

The most common types of mistakes are:

• Failure to know the substantive law
• Failure to get a client's consent or to inform the client
• Failure to calendar events
• Not knowing or observing a deadline
• Insufficient discovery and/or investigation

Most legal malpractice occurs through:

• Administrative errors (among them: failure to calendar, clerical error, procrastination)
• Substantive errors (such as: failure to know the law, conflict of interest)
• Client relations (not following client instructions, improper withdrawal)
• Intentional wrong doing such as libel, civil rights, fraud, theft, malicious prosecution

Is there a time frame to bring my legal malpractice claim?

Yes. The injured party must file suit within a certain time period. There are, however, some equitable remedies that may extend the time for filing suit. Moreover, each state's statute of limitations may vary. More information is coming soon.

If you believe that you may have a legal malpractice case, contact Attorney Joel Bander by completing our Legal Malpractice Contact Form or speak directly to one of the members of our staff at (626) 689-2535.