When you hire an attorney, you expect that the attorney will understand the laws that could affect your case. If an attorney is not well educated or misrepresents their education in a certain area of law, you could be in the right position to make a claim against them for legal malpractice.
Legal malpractice happens when a person’s case is negatively impacted because of an attorney’s errors or negligence. Not being truthful about the background they have or the skills they possess could put an attorney at risk of facing this kind of lawsuit.
It’s not always simple to prove legal malpractice
You need to keep in mind that it isn’t always simple to prove legal malpractice occurred. For example, you may not have much evidence that the attorney wasn’t skilled other than the results of a lost case.
To prove your case, you will need to show three things.
- Your lawyer had a legal responsibility to represent you with the competence expected in the industry.
- Your attorney made an error of some kind or acted in a way that led to that duty being breached.
- You lost money or were harmed because of the attorney’s actions.
It’s not simple to prove that malpractice occurred in most cases, but you can take steps to build your case up and improve the likelihood of winning if you go to court. How?
- First, see if you can talk to another attorney to get their professional opinion on your case. That attorney should be in the same field. For example, if you have a problem with your current criminal defense attorney, you may want to get a second opinion about your case from another criminal defense attorney.
- Keep all your records, including the records about what your attorney is doing to represent you and the laws they’ve cited to support your case.
- Write down the dates and times of suspected errors, if you can.
By doing these things, you’ll be in a better position to make your claim and seek fair compensation for what you’ve lost due to the attorney’s errors.