Legal Malpractice Lawyers Hollywood, FL
Hollywood Legal Malpractice Lawyers Provide Trusted Representation to Clients Harmed by Another Lawyer’s Negligence
When you retain a lawyer’s services, you put your faith in the fact that they will act in accordance with professional and ethical standards in order to provide you with the best representation possible in your case. As in medicine, not every legal case can be won, but a lawyer should always put all of their skills, training, and expertise to work in every single case they agree to take on. When a lawyer fails in this duty and instead provides you with negligent representation, you may have an actionable cause of action for legal malpractice.
Winning a legal malpractice case can be complicated because these cases require analysis of both the lawyer’s actions and the underlying case itself. This means that you need a lawyer with both the experience and resources necessary to take on these cases.
At Lawlor, White & Murphey, we have a combined 55 years’ worth of experience successfully helping clients win fair compensation for the harms they have suffered as a result of someone else’s negligence. To succeed in your legal malpractice case, we will fight to show that you would have won the underlying case or received a better outcome (in terms of a settlement offer or compensation award) if your original lawyer had provided competent legal representation. We represent clients in Hollywood and throughout South Florida, so call today to schedule a no-cost consultation to tell us what happened in your case.
Florida Rules of Professional Conduct Require Lawyers to Provide Competent Representation
Under the Florida rules of professional conduct, which apply to all lawyers who practice law in the state of Florida, every lawyer must provide all clients with “competent representation”. In order to provide this competent representation, a lawyer must have the legal knowledge and skills that are reasonably necessary to handle the client’s case. While this does not mean that every lawyer must be an expert in all cases that the lawyer chooses to accept, the lawyer must have the skills necessary to gain the knowledge necessary to provide competent representation to his or her clients.
Legal malpractice in Hollywood often includes situations where your original lawyer:
- Missed a statute of limitations, so was time-barred from filing a case,
- Engaged in fraudulent billing practices,
- Stole money or other property,
- Broke attorney-client privilege and improperly shared confidential information,
- Failed to properly decline cases that would create impermissible conflicts of interests for the lawyer, or as between clients,
- Failed to obtain necessary client consent to engage in a course of action in a case,
- Missed court deadlines, or failed to prepare for court hearings,
- Failed to respond to client communications or adequately communicate with the client.
Lawlor, White & Murphey Help Clients Get Justice for Harm Caused by Legal Malpractice in Hollywood, Florida
Legal malpractice cases, like all other negligence cases, are fact-intensive and require significant evidence to prove that the lawyer’s actions rose to the level of actionable malpractice. Our lawyers will conduct a thorough investigation of your case and work with you every step of the way to win fair compensation in your case, including by:
- Evaluating the evidence, including communications between you and your original lawyer, court filings and records and the evidence in your underlying case,
- Consulting with expert witnesses, who will help us show how a reasonable lawyer would have acted in order to provide competent representation based on the facts and circumstances of your specific case,
- Preparing and filing all necessary court documents required to establish your claim for legal malpractice.
To succeed, we must establish certain elements of your case, including:
- Breach of duty—which requires a showing that your original lawyer failed to provide competent representation (in other words, that the lawyer was negligent),
- Causation—this requires showing that a link between the lawyer’s actions and your resulting harm, and
- Financial damages—which means showing that you suffered tangible consequences that can be reduced to a dollar value because of the legal malpractice.
Schedule a Free Initial Consultation to Discuss Your Hollywood Legal Malpractice Case with Our Reputable Lawyers Today
If you believe that your lawyer has committed malpractice, call our offices today to discuss your situation with our experienced Hollywood legal malpractice lawyers, or fill out this brief online contact form and we will respond promptly. Because you only have two years from the date the malpractice occurred to file a case, it is important that you act quickly in retaining an experienced legal malpractice lawyer to advocate on your behalf.
Frequently Asked Questions About Hollywood Legal Malpractice Cases
A legal malpractice case is a civil lawsuit in Florida, which means that if your case goes to trial, we can request a trial by jury. The jury will consist of six people, who will generally decide which party is right and the amount of your compensation. The judge may decide certain legal issues, as well. Our lawyers will advocate on your behalf in court, and will also complete and file all necessary paperwork with the court—we keep you apprised of the progress of your case every step of the way, so you will always know how your case is progressing, what is happening and why.
No. Not all errors made by your lawyer constitute malpractice. In some cases, given the benefit of hindsight, you may be able to clearly see that if your lawyer had taken a different course of action, the results would have been better. Despite this, legal malpractice cases only take into consideration the facts that existed and that the lawyer knew or reasonably should have known at the time the error was made. Additionally, the mistake must have caused you some sort of harm in order to be actionable—in many cases, it will be necessary to show that you would have won the underlying case if not for the lawyer’s error.
