Please bear with me while I explain the detail.
My father and this guy were suing each other for 70k money. My father hired a law firm to work on the case. Prior to trial, he already paid the firm 17k. The trial opened last week, in county Supreme Court, with Jury and everything. It was going very well on Monday. The opposing party offered 20k settlement, but my dad wanted to go all the way. On Tuesday, during lunch break, the boss of our reperesenting law firm came up to my father and asked him to pay 14k attorney fee right away. My father told him to give him some time to get the money, and the contract gave us a week to pay. The boss insisted we pay him immediately, or he's going to drop the case and we are going to lose. They had this argument right in front of our opposing party. The argument ended without conclusion. On Wednesday, there was supposed to be a testimony by two opposing party's witnesses. The law firm didn't inform us, so we missed it. We found out later that the firm sent a new lawyer who we don't even know to the court that day (not the one who had been working on our case). On Thursday, my father gave the judge a letter, explaining what had happened, and asked the judge to give him sometime to find another attorney. The judge put the letter into record, and told my father that he has 2 choices: either fire the firm and representing himself, or keep the firm. There is no time to find another attorney. So my father had to choose keeping the firm, since representing by himself has 0 chance of winning. Thursday evening, we went to the firm's office to prep the case with our old lawyer. In the middle of the preping, the boss came in and literally kicked us out of his office. As a result, we had very little time preparing. In the end, the jury's verdict was that both parties were award no money.
This leaves my father in a bad situation: he lost the money he should have rightfully won, and he is stuck in a large amount of attorney fee (25k, the law firm claimed). So, what can we do?? At this point, what should be our best course of action? Does this constitue malpractice?
Thank you very much for reading this.
Answer by Strange Days
Report the firm to the bar association and then sue the firm for misconduct.Sounds like they were in cahoots with the other firm
Answer by jsmack19
Call the bar of the state you are in and inform them of everything and see what they say, they may tell you to file a malpractice suit. But I feel like either you haven't provided all the information or you don't know it all.
Answer by Lisa
For malpractice, there has to be negligence by the attorney that materially would have changed the outcome of the case. If you can't prove that the things the lawyer did would have had a material affect on the outcome then you will not succeed in a malpractice suit. You have to prove not only negligence, but that you would have likely succeeded had the negligence not occurred.
Some classic examples of malpractice would be for a defense attorney to not interview an alibi witness that could testify and would exculpate the defendant, or fail to object to inadmissible evidence that influenced the jury materially so that they came to a different conclusion than they would have had the evidence not been admitted. The measure is also used by the standard in the industry - as in a reasonable competent attorney would have done it (e.g. objected to the inadmissible evidence being offered.)
As for malpractice, not sure, but there could definitely be some ethical violations in there. You can always make a complaint with the state bar and they can refer you to a legal malpractice lawyer if you need one. Not too many lawyers like doing those cases because they are going after their colleagues so-to-speak, however, it is important to eradicate incompetent attorneys from the profession who tarnish it, so there are some willing to do those cases for that reason.
**This is just general discussion.
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Orignal From: Is this legal malpractice? What should we do?
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