New York Civil Litigation Attorney
Legal Malpractice
If a lawyer has made a mistake that has cost you money or adversely affected your legal rights, Norman M. Block, P.C. will help you determine if legal malpractice has occurred and whether any monetary recovery is possible.
Attorney malpractice can include missed court dates, late filings of lawsuits and documents, and improperly preparing contracts and other papers, missed statute of limitations, failure to review a title report, failing to tell you everything you need to know in order to make a decision about how you should proceed in a case. Some more concrete examples include:
- Error in contracts, deeds, and other legal papers
- Failure to understand and/or read a document which affects your legal rights
- Failure to communicate the contents of a document so that you can make
an informed decision about it - Failure to file a lawsuit before the expiration of a statute of limitations
- Failure to prepare necessary documents to protect your rights
- Failing to meet court ordered deadlines so that your lawsuit is dismissed or
a default judgment is entered against you
In order to bring a malpractice case against a lawyer, you must answer three questions:
- What was the standard of care which should have been exercised by the attorney?
- Did the lawyer's conduct deviate from that standard of care?
- Were you harmed financially because of the attorney's malpractice?
When the malpractice arises out of the lawyer's involvement in a lawsuit, you must be able to establish that you would have won the suit if the malpractice did not occur. This is often referred to as the "case within a case." So, for example, if the lawyer missed a statute of limitations, but you would have lost your case even if the error did not occur, there is no case against the lawyer.
The lawyer must be your lawyer. You can't sue your wife's attorney for malpractice if you lost your case and are unhappy with the way her lawyer conducted her case. Often, while the lawyer may seem like your lawyer, he or she really represents someone else. An attorney who represents the estate of a deceased person is the attorney for the estate and not for the beneficiaries of the estate. An attorney for a corporation of partnership is the attorney for that entity, and not for the individual partners, employees, officers or shareholders.
At Norman M. Block, P.C., we will help you analyze the complicated issues that surround legal malpractice cases, help you understand whether the attorney actually committed malpractice and whether the error the lawyer committed actually caused damages to you.
Contact the Westchester County, New York office of Norman M. Block today to discuss your legal issue. We offer free consultations and contingency fee representation in personal injury and malpractice claims.
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