Legal Malpractice Lawyers Pembroke Pines

Protecting Victims of Legal Malpractice in Pembroke Pines, FL

Every lawyer is required to complete rigorous, ongoing training and satisfy specific licensing requirements in order to practice law in any given state—and in the state of Florida, this also means adhering to a code of ethics designed to protect clients against wrongdoing by their trusted lawyer. Lawyers must not only have the skills and knowledge necessary to practice law, but also have a duty to act in good faith and in their clients’ best interests in any given situation. What this duty entails can vary based on the circumstances of a specific case and client, but when a lawyer breaches their ethical duties, clients almost always suffer the consequences.

Our experienced legal malpractice lawyers at Lawlor, White & Murphey take our ethical duties to clients seriously, and are dedicated to holding other lawyers accountable when they cause clients harm through negligent representation or other unethical behavior. Legal malpractice cases in Pembroke Pines are almost always complicated by the fact that, in order to establish actionable malpractice, we must also look into the underlying case, where valuable evidence may have been lost or destroyed because of the original lawyer’s negligence. Because of this, it is especially important to retain a lawyer with the skills and resources necessary to handle these complications.

At Lawlor, White & Murphey, we have nearly three decades’ worth of experience and have successfully recovered over $100 million in compensation for our clients. We take our reputations in the South Florida community seriously, and will fight to rebuild your trust in the legal community.

Lawyers Must Adhere to Strict Ethical Standards when Representing South Florida Clients

Florida lawyers have ethical duties to act in every client’s best interests, and to exercise good faith in their legal representation—this can mean a variety of things, including turning down cases where the lawyer does not have the necessary skills or time to adequately represent the client’s interests. Our lawyers have handled legal malpractice cases involving:

• Fee disputes where the attorney charged an unreasonable or illegal fee
• Breach of contract, where the lawyer failed to act as promised under the terms of the agreement, including cases where the lawyer simply does not complete the work necessary in a case
• Failure to meet court deadlines and time limitations, such as the statute of limitations in a case
• Conflicts of interest, where the lawyer accepted a case in which he or she had some type of stake
• Failure to inform the client of his or her options in a case
• Breach of confidentiality, where the lawyer broke attorney-client privilege and illegally shared client information
• Cases where lawyer takes some sort of action, such as settling a case, without the client’s approval
• Misuse of client funds, or outright theft

Legal Malpractice Lawyers Fighting to Reestablish Trust in the South Florida Legal Community

As in any other negligence case, we will work tirelessly to establish four critical elements to prove that you have a valid legal malpractice case, including:

• Duty of care. We will first establish the lawyer’s duty, which can be established by proving that an attorney-client relationship existed.
• Breach. Here, we will work to show the lawyer’s mistake or to establish that the lawyer somehow breached his or her duty to act in good faith and in your best interests.
• Causation. It is also necessary that we prove that the breach of duty caused you some type of harm, for example, losing your original case.
• Damages. Here, we will work to establish the amount of financial harm that you suffered as a result of the legal malpractice.

A simple loss in a case is not sufficient to establish legal malpractice. We must also prove that a reasonable lawyer in the same circumstances would have acted differently in handling your case, or that the lawyer committed some sort of illegal or fraudulent act. Every case is different, but we will leave no stone unturned in investigating to determine whether your original lawyer’s actions amounted to malpractice.