Schwartz & Ponterio, PLLC holds lawyers responsible for legal malpractice.

How to avoid legal malpractice

On Behalf of | Apr 1, 2021 | Legal Malpractice

When you bring your case to a New York City court, you need to be careful. The lawyer that you hire to represent you needs to be completely experienced and professional. The threat of malpractice affecting your case in an adverse manner is too high to discount.

What are the most common forms of malpractice?

There are many forms of legal malpractice that you need to know. One of the most common is when you hire a lawyer who is simply dipping their toes in this particular area of law without really being qualified to practice in it. If you are involved in a case that hinges on e-discovery, the lawyer you hire needs to be an expert in this field.

The lawyer you hire needs to have a top-level staff that they can rely on. If one of the team members makes a mistake, he or she needs to take full responsibility for it. If that individual refuses to do so or attempts to blame everything on that staff member, he or she is committing serious legal malpractice.

If there is an issue with your insurance coverage, your lawyer needs to be up to speed on it. Your lawyer can be guilty of committing malpractice if he or she ignores your coverage benefits in order to extract more money from you.

Overconfidence is also a sign of potential malpractice. Sometimes a lawyer can be so confident in his or her abilities that he or she fails to do proper research about a case. This can lead to serious issues when the attorney is suddenly confronted with a detail or a change to a law that he or she is not aware of. This can lose your case and cost you dearly.

How to lessen the danger of malpractice

Your best bet to avoid attorney malpractice is to hire a lawyer that you have researched to the last detail. Be sure to check the attorney’s references, ask for qualifications, and consult with the person before you hire him or her. This will help you hire an attorney that you have total confidence in to help you win your New York City case.

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