Understanding Legal Malpractice and What You Can Do About It.
When you ask a lawyer to represent you, it is based on faith that he or she will complete the task accordingly. Even though the lawyer comes highly recommended, you cannot ignore the fact that he can also mess up. Whether you hired someone based on advert you saw on the internet or because a friend recommended him, you can still get disappointed. There are many lawyers who will do an excellent job in representing their clients but do not forget that some might also violate the service standards. A lot of clients suffer in silence because they do not know when their attorney is not doing his job. The better part of that population has no idea what needs to be done when the attorney is not doing what he or she promised. First of all, the attorney-client privilege has to be upheld all the time. Your lawyer has no right to divulge information you provided to another person if you do not authorize and the same goes for the private documents you provide and even the case he is building. In the event of such, you have the right to take action against the person because he will have breached the terms of your agreement.
Legal malpractice also happens when the attorney has conflicting interests in the case. You should not be represented by an attorney who is related to the people on the opposing or even friends with them. In the event that you are suing a certain business, you should not agree to be represented by an attorney who has ownership rights in it. If it happens that the attorney is in a position which would lead to loyalty issues, he should let you know about this from the start and resign as your counsel. Knowing about this midway means everything the lawyer has done to that point might be to benefit himself. This is a legal malpractice you should not let go unpunished.
The lawyer is just supposed to represent you but not make decisions on your behalf. Thus, any settlement the other party is proposing should be accepted only by you and the lawyer should act on it once you are onboard. Any deal coming from the other party or even a settlement offer should be disclosed to you if you were not in the meeting and this does not take into consideration whether the lawyer is happy about it or not. You should let the court and legal board know about legal malpractice. You should also hire another attorney who is going to help you get compensation for all the violations the person did.