Legal Malpractice Lawyer

Shook, Hardy & Bacon L.L.P. (SHB) is an international law firm specializing in a number of practice areas, including the sometimes sticky situation surrounding legal malpractice lawsuits.

A legal malpractice lawyer files a lawsuit when a lawyer or legal representation fails in the preparation, execution, or settlement of a client's case, resulting in additional legal consequences.

Legal malpractice is the term for negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, or breach of contract by an attorney that causes harm to his or her client. In order to rise to an actionable level of negligence, the legal malpractice lawyer for the injured party must show that the attorney's acts were not merely the result of poor strategy, but the result of errors that no reasonable attorney would make. Furthermore, legal malpractice requires the showing of an injury that would not have happened had the attorney not been negligent. If the injury would have occurred despite different (non-negligent) actions by the attorney, no cause of action will be permitted. Legal malpractice can also occur when an attorney breaches a fiduciary duty to his or her client. This occurs when attorneys act in their own interest instead of to their client's, to the detriment of their client. A claim for legal malpractice may also arise when an attorney breaches the contract they sign with their client.

A common basis for a legal malpractice claim arises where an attorney misses a deadline for a filing of a paper with the court, such as a statute of limitations, and this error is related to the loss of the client's cause of action.

The most common theory of liability used in malpractice cases, however, is negligence. An attorney owes a duty to the client to perform all work relevant to a case with the standard of care expected of the "average" attorney in the same or a similar situation. If the attorney fails to perform at the level of an average attorney, there may be negligence and liability for legal malpractice. If an attorney presents himself out to be an expert in an area of law, the standard of care is that of the "ordinary" expert in the field.

It can be difficult to find a legal malpractice lawyer, but there are lawyers in every state who accept legal malpractice cases. Every legal malpractice lawyer at SHB is a professional, and we will handle your case with integrity and respect. Contact us today to visit with a legal malpractice lawyer.