Although
legal malpractice is generally referred to as attorney negligence,
it can occur in any area of the law and can take many forms
such as simple negligence, gross negligence, negligence per
se, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, and
violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA).
Clients
can be damaged by lawyers in many ways such as:
• Neglect -missing a statute of limitation, failing to
conduct and respond to discovery,
failing to designate experts and/or proper witnesses;
• Lawyer's conflict of interest-putting the lawyer's
interests above a client's or putting
one client's interest over another's;
• Drafting errors in documents and/or agreements.
The most
common types of mistakes are:
• Failure to know the substantive law;
• Failure to get a client's consent or to inform the
client;
• Failure to calendar events;
• Not knowing or observing a deadline;
• Insufficient discovery and/or investigation.
Most legal
malpractice occurs through:
• Administrative errors (among them: failure to calendar,
clerical error, procrastination);
• Substantive errors (such as: failure to know the law,
conflict of interest);
• Client relations (not following client instructions,
improper withdrawal);
• Intentional wrong doing such as libel, civil rights,
fraud, theft, malicious prosecution.
In Texas,
the general rule is that legal malpractice cases must be brought
within two years from the time the injured party knew or should
have known of the legal malpractice. This means that the injured
party must file suit within that time period. There are, however,
some equitable remedies that may extend the time for filing
suit.
If you
believe that you may have a legal malpractice case, contact
the law offices of Lance Christopher Kassab, P.C. Telephone
713-522-7400 or complete and submit our Legal
Malpractice Questionnaire or fax it to 713-522-7410.
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