Surprisingly, lawyers are becoming progressively more fashionable objects for malpractice suits.  A Fort Lauderdale personal injury attorney states that there is no precise definition of legal malpractice; normally, a lawyer commits malpractice when he or she fails to provide quality legal services to their client.

Filing a complaint with the Florida Bar is different than filing a lawsuit against an attorney for malpractice.  A lawsuit involves proving a lawyer committed negligence and entitles a successful plaintiff to damages.  A complaint with the Florida Bar is processed through the Bar’s lawyer grievance system and if found valid, may subject the attorney to disciplinary actions.

As with any professional malpractice lawsuit, a plaintiff suing for legal malpractice must show the four elements necessary to prove negligence – duty of care, breach of duty, injury and proximate cause.

A Fort Lauderdale personal injury lawyer explains that duty of care for a lawyer means that once that person hires the attorney and becomes a client, the attorney owes that person duty of care. Nevertheless, there are times when it can be confusing as to whether or not a lawyer has been hired. Consulting with an attorney is not the same thing as hiring or retaining a lawyer.

There are two mechanisms to the duty that a lawyer owes their clients – competency and fiduciary.  A lawyer must exercise the same legal skill as a reasonably competent attorney.  No lawyer is expected to know the law so well that they can give ideal answers to every legal question, but lawyers are expected to know how to research issues and recognize the limits of their knowledge. As a fiduciary of a client, a lawyer is compelled to treat all information relating to a client’s representation as confidential and to fervently represent the client’s interests to the best of their abilities.

A Florida court describes the duty a lawyer owes their client as being “Implicit in every attorney/client contract under Florida law is the covenant by the attorney that he will conduct himself according to customary professional standards . . . the attorney is under duty to represent his client with the utmost degree of honesty, forthrightness, loyalty and fidelity and must resign if at any time in the course of litigation his interest in the suit becomes adverse or hostile toward this client.”