In prevail on a claim for malpractice against their, a plaintiff/former client needs to demonstrate that their attorney violated his duty of car to the client by providing negligent representation and that the negligence caused the client to suffer injury and damages. It is insufficient to only prove that the acted didn’t choose the right strategy (which is often a matter of opinion) or did not act in most or efficient or careful manner. Proving negligence alone isn’t enough to prevail as you must still show that damages were caused by the negligence. For instance, even if an attorney misses a statute of limitation or fails to file a timely appeal, the client must still show that they would have prevailed in the underlying lawsuit. We serve clients throughout the Chicago area and our attorneys are very familiar with the different aspects of successfully litigating a legal malpractice claim.
In some instances where the attorney is guilty of breach of fiduciary duty or of misappropriating client funds or other acts of dishonestly, proving a malpractice claim and the resulting damages is routine. In most malpractice cases, the issues raised contain significant nuances and difficulties. For example, one of our client’s was forced to settle a lawsuit for much less than the over $2 million his attorneys asked the jury to award in opening argument. Our client was forced to settle because the attorney in violation of the rules of evidence and ethical rules hired the accounting damages expert on a contingency basis. The judge as a result barred our clients’ expert from testifying which forced our clients to settle for a small fraction of the amount requested in opening statement. We filed suit for malpractice and had to present the damages theory that our client was prevented from showing to the jury and also had to prove that our client would have prevailed at trial or at least received a much larger settlement. We ultimately settled the malpractice case for a significant amount after proving the malpractice when we cross examined our clients’ former attorney at deposition and obtained significant admissions against interest.
We represented the plaintiff a purchaser of a Purina Pet Food distributorship after his attorney failed to conduct a due diligence which would have uncovered that Purina was just days away from terminating the distributorship. This malpractice resulted in millions of dollars in damages to our client. We ultimately achieved a favorable settlement after deposing the lawyer defendant who admitted to the malpractice.
We have also represented or consulted with a number of lawyers accused of committing malpractice and have achieved dismissal of some of the lawsuits against them.
You can read about some of these cases and others in the record section of our website here.
If you are an attorney faced with a malpractice claim or a client seeking to determine if you want to sue your former attorney for malpractice, contact one of our skilled Chicago legal malpractice attorneys. Our lawyers represent attorneys and plaintiffs in legal malpractice lawsuits and in claims by clients alleging excessive attorneys’ fees. Our broad-based record as counsel for injured clients and attorneys who are named as defendants in legal malpractice suits allows up to address the case from a variety of unique perspectives.
Based in the Chicago with offices in Elmhurst, Wilmette and Chicago, our Chicago Business Litigation attorneys can assist you. area, our legal malpractice attorneys have prosecuted or defended a wide variety of different types of legal malpractice claims. To contact one of our Chicago legal malpractice lawyers, please call at 630-333-0333 or contact us online.