Failing to Answer Discovery

Example of Legal Malpractice Timeline

New Jersey Legal Malpractice Attorney

Timeline to malpractice in 9 steps:

  1. Your lawyer files a lawsuit on your behalf.
  2. The defendant (who you sued) serves your lawyer with interrogatories, which are questions for you to answer.
  3. Your lawyer fails to send you the interrogatories (or he sends them to you, but fails to send the answers to the questions back to the Defendant’s lawyer).
  4. Sixty days elapse, and Defendant’s lawyer has called and written, asking for answers to the interrogatories. Your lawyer has ignored his calls and letters.
  5. The Defendant’s lawyer files a motion with the court asking for a court order to compel you to answer the interrogatories. Your lawyer receives an Order giving him ten days to provide typed-up answers to the questions, verified by you. You remain unaware of this process.
  6. Ten days later, your lawyer has remained in default. The defendant’s lawyer places one more call to your lawyer’s office in the hope of resolving the matter informally, without success.
  7. After another week, the Defendant’s lawyer files a motion to dismiss your case for failure to answer interrogatories (and for failure to respond to the Order compelling answers).
  8. Your lawyer does not respond to the Motion to Dismiss.
  9. The Court dismisses your lawsuit.

In this timeline above, your lawyer has committed legal malpractice. He has done this by allowing your lawsuit to get dismissed, simply by failing to answer interrogatories, which are one of the many forms of pre-trial discovery devices used by lawyers to ask questions and collect information from each other while a case is pending. If lawyers don’t cooperate with each other during the discovery phase, the court will dismiss their case — and that is malpractice!

Every state and federal court system imposes specific rules for conducting pre-trial discovery. Judges often set additional case management deadlines for issuing interrogatories, producing documents and engaging in other discovery procedures. Openly ignoring these procedures is negligent, and an attorney is acts so negligently is subject to a claim for damages for his malpractice.

Read Our Latest Blog Posts

Contact Us Today for a No-Fee Consultation!

Timely, effective legal services with down-to-Earth, common sense advice, provided to individuals, businesses, and organizations.

The legal team at the Law Offices of Mark S. Guralnick is happy to assist you with your legal problems, no matter how big or small. We serve clients throughout the United States and across the world.

Feel free to contact us toll-free at 1-866-337-2900.

    8 College
    Degrees
    6 Specialty
    Certifications
    9 Bar
    Licenses
    10 Law
    Books
    8 Professional
    Awards
    30+ Years of
    Experience
    100+ Published
    Articles

    Licensed as a private detective, Mark Guralnick is a former investigative news reporter, and leverages these skills and experiences to deliver excellent client service while finding smart, practical, cost-effective solutions.

    See What We Can Do For You
    Back to Top