Being an attorney is one of the most respected professions. Attorneys carry out very important duties for their clients. For example, they may defend a client from wrongful criminal charges.
In many legal cases, the stakes are very high. That’s why legal professionals are held to such a high standard. While mistakes can happen, even from attorneys, there is a difference between an honest mistake and negligence.
What is negligence in legal malpractice cases?
The legal duty of care
The principles of negligence are well established, and they apply to legal malpractice cases. The first step is to establish whether or not a duty of care was owed. An attorney owes their client a legal duty of care as soon as they agree to take on the case.
A breach of duty of care
As mentioned, honest mistakes can happen. A lawyer may misread a case or be 10 minutes late for a hearing because of traffic. However, when an error goes beyond the expected conduct of a reasonable legal professional, this may be considered a breach of duty of care. For example, if an attorney turned up to a court hearing while intoxicated.
Causation and harm
For negligence to have occurred, there must be causation and harm. The harm suffered (damages) must be quantifiable. For instance, a person may go to jail because a competent defense was not raised. Importantly, the harm must have been caused by the misconduct. If the jail sentence was inevitable anyway, then the attorney could not have directly caused the harm.
Legal malpractice cases can be very complex. That’s why it’s so important to have the appropriate legal guidance behind you at every step of the process.