Legal Malpractice Vs. Ethics Violations | What’s the Difference?
Posted June 9th, 2020.
Categories: Legal Malpractice.
If you recently had a pressing legal issue, you most likely hired an attorney to represent your best interests. Fortunately, the state of New Jersey has many fantastic attorneys that have taken an oath to stand up for their clients and defend their rights to the best of their ability through every step of the legal process. Unfortunately, there are many attorneys who simply do not understand or care about the dire importance of taking such an oath. If you believe your attorney either behaved maliciously or negligently and you lost your case as a result, you may be looking into filing a legal malpractice lawsuit against that attorney. Please continue reading and reach out to our knowledgeable firm to learn more about ethics violations and how we can help you through the legal process ahead.
To start, we feel we should clarify exactly what legal malpractice is. Legal malpractice is defined as a negligent act on an attorney’s part that thereby breached his or her fiduciary duty to his or her client. This does not necessarily have to be a malicious act, rather, it can simply be failing to take reasonable care and, by extension, breach his or her contract to the client.
Now, despite ethical violations being harmful, selfish, and downright wrong, an attorney violating ethical standards may not be grounds to file a legal malpractice case. These violations come in several shapes and sizes. One example of an ethical violation can be an attorney ignoring your calls or emails regarding an update on your case. However, though this is rude and a terrible example of what a good attorney should do, to win a legal malpractice case, you will have to prove that the attorney’s act of negligence caused you to incur significant financial damages as a result.
There are few things worse than turning to an attorney in your time of need, only to have that attorney fall short of what any reasonable person would expect. If you believe you have a valid legal malpractice case against a negligent attorney, please do not hesitate to reach out to our experienced New Jersey legal malpractice attorney to learn more about how our firm can help you through every step of the claims process ahead. We are ready to help you–all you have to do is give us a call today.
Contact our experienced New Jersey firm
The Law Offices of Mark S. Guralnick is an experienced and committed legal team for clients throughout the state of New Jersey. Our team effectively serves victims of legal malpractice. If you require the services of a dedicated attorney, please contact The Law Offices of Mark S. Guralnick today for a free consultation.
