20 Truths About Malpractice Attorney: Busted

Medical malpractice lawsuits (click hyperlink)

Attorneys have a fiduciary connection with their clients and are expected to conduct themselves with care, diligence and skill. Attorneys make mistakes, just like any other professional.

Some mistakes made by lawyers are a result of malpractice. To demonstrate legal malpractice, an aggrieved party has to prove the breach of duty, duty, causation and damages. Let's look at each of these aspects.

Duty

Doctors and medical professionals take the oath of using their skill and training to treat patients and not causing further harm. Duty of care is the basis for a patient's right to compensation for injuries caused by medical negligence. Your attorney will determine if your doctor's actions violated the duty of care and if the breach resulted in injury or illness.

To prove a duty to care, your lawyer will need to prove that a medical professional has an official relationship with you and had a fiduciary obligation to exercise a reasonable level of expertise and care. This relationship can be established by eyewitness testimony, physician-patient reports and expert testimony from doctors who have similar education, experience and training.

Your lawyer will also need to demonstrate that the medical professional violated their duty to care by failing to follow the accepted standards in their field. This is often called negligence. Your lawyer will be able to compare the actions of the defendant to what a reasonable individual would do in the same situation.

Your lawyer must prove that the defendant's lapse of duty directly resulted in damage or loss to you. This is referred to as causation. Your lawyer will use evidence like your doctor or patient records, witness testimony and expert testimony to prove that the defendant's inability to adhere to the standard of care was the main reason for the loss or injury to you.

Breach

A doctor is bound by a duty of care for his patients that corresponds to professional medical standards. If a doctor fails meet those standards and that failure causes injury, then medical malpractice or negligence could occur. Typically the testimony of medical professionals with similar training, skills or certifications will aid in determining what the best standard of medical care should be in a particular situation. Federal and state laws, as well as institute policies, help determine what doctors are required to do for certain types of patients.

To prevail in a malpractice case it is necessary to prove that the doctor violated his or his duty of care and that this breach was the direct cause of injury. This is known in legal terms as the causation component and it is imperative that it be established. For instance when a broken arm requires an xray the doctor must fix the arm and place it in a cast to ensure proper healing. If the doctor is unable to complete this task and the patient is left with a permanent loss of usage of the arm, malpractice may be at play.

Causation

Legal malpractice claims founded on the evidence that the attorney made mistakes that resulted in financial losses to the client. For instance when a lawyer does not file an action within the timeframe of limitations, resulting in the case being lost forever the party who suffered damages could bring legal malpractice lawsuits.

It is important to understand that not all errors made by attorneys are wrong. Errors involving strategy and planning aren't usually considered to be a violation of the law attorneys are given plenty of discretion in making judgment calls so long as they're reasonable.

The law also gives attorneys ample discretion to refrain from performing discovery on behalf of clients as long as the failure was not unreasonable or a result of negligence. Failure to uncover important details or documents, such as medical or witness statements can be a case of legal malpractice attorneys. Other instances of malpractice include failure to add certain claims or defendants for example, like forgetting to include a survival count in a wrongful death case or the frequent and persistent inability to communicate with clients.

It's also important that it must be proved that if it weren't the lawyer's negligence, the plaintiff would have won the underlying case. The plaintiff's claim of malpractice is rejected if it is not proven. This requirement makes the process of bringing legal malpractice lawsuits difficult. It is essential to choose an experienced attorney.

Damages

A plaintiff must show that the attorney's actions have caused actual financial losses in order to prevail in a legal malpractice suit. In a lawsuit, this must be proven through evidence, such as expert testimony and correspondence between the client and attorney. A plaintiff must also demonstrate that a reasonable lawyer could have prevented the damage caused by the negligence of the lawyer. This is known as proximate cause.

Malpractice can manifest in a number of different ways. Some of the most common errors include: not meeting a deadline or statute of limitations; not conducting the necessary conflict checks on a case; applying the law in a way that is not appropriate to the client's circumstances; and breaching the fiduciary duty (i.e. mixing trust account funds with attorney's personal accounts) or a mishandling of a case, and failing to communicate with the client.

In most medical malpractice cases the plaintiff is seeking compensatory damages. They are awarded to the victim in exchange for out-of-pocket expenses and losses, like medical and hospital bills, costs of equipment required to aid in recovering, and lost wages. In addition, victims can claim non-economic damages, such as suffering and suffering and Malpractice Lawsuits loss of enjoyment of life, and emotional distress.

In many legal malpractice cases there are cases for punitive and compensatory damages. The former compensates a victim for the losses caused by the attorney's negligence, while the latter is intended to discourage future malpractice by the defendant.