Florida Legal Malpractice Legal Questions

Its not that lawyers are not fond of paperwork - but simply that like any other business we have no desire to spend tens or hundreds of hours of uncompensated time to see IF a case exists let alone devoted to an actually viable claim. The starting point for a medical malpractice issue will be for you to  insist on an autopsy, then gather ALL of the medical records and then consult with a lawyer to secure a proper medical record review to examine your concerns and determine if some medical negligence occurred. Any potential legal claim will revolve around those findings. ... Read More

You can't pick a fight and they cry because you don't want to get hit back. Its obvious there is some conroversy with prior lawyer but you will have to choose between taking your chances with some form of settlement agreement or keeping your right to sue and file complaints and taking your chances. ... Read More

Possibly, but its likely difficult to prove that the lawyer didsuch a thing "to help prosecute her" unless it was very unique or was evidence an ongoing criminal act or future one that mightnot be subject to privilege. While the Bar or criminal defense lawyer might have interest in addressing this, it won't likely attract many civil lawyers on a contingent fee for obvious reasons. ... Read More

Its impossible to tell as this is more of an issue of the obligation of the legal insurance company and the plan terms than the lawyer, since the insurance carrier is paying the lawyer and not you. I have little doubt that there are some significant time or work effort limitations to the plan especially if it covers a contested divorce. In the contested family law environment there is no free ride, insurance or not, where the consumer will pay a smal amount of money and then reap tens of thousands of dollars in legal fee value, especially at the expense of the lawyer. If you look at your ARAG plan it moist likely excludes contested divorce cases or provides a fee discount as opposed to an a full payment by the insurance carrie. Why?Family law cases are NOTORIOUS for litigants with champagne expectations and malt liquor wallets. By example the "slow and minimal support" you describe probably equates to several hundred dollar in legal fees... Read More

Without a lawyer representing you, the "justice" you recive may not be the justice you expect or want. If you are willing to pay for the legal expenses there are many lawyers that will help.If you expect lawyers to bear the expense and risk on your case an they wont, that tells you that they think the case is poor and you may want to reconsider whether a lawsuit is viable. ... Read More

The problem here is OUR attorney. The lawyer was your MOTHERS lawyer. If there was a "ladybird" deed or something of the sort it may be difficult to hold the lawyer responsible if the deed is taken by the client and notarized and signed elswhere and returned for filing. BEFORE you accuse the lawyer of malpractice, you would need to have retained another estate lawyer as an expert that says such an issue equates to malpractice.  ... Read More

Your not entitled to your file from the firm in general. You're entitled to your original records you provided, as long as there is no fee lien, and the law firm is only obligated not to withhold original records or tangible evidence if it would cause you irreparable harm. If there is a fee lien, called a charging lien, you will have to make arranagement to pay or protect thelegal fees owed and usually pay for copies of the file. ... Read More

There is something missing here unless you expect anyone to believe that the lawyer was going through all of that effort for free, which would be astounding. Seems like the lawyer claims he is owed a fee and is asserting a lien on the funds recovered. You need to sit down and sort this out before it blows up and gets out of hand. ... Read More

The problem with mortgage foreclosure malpractice claims is they typcially revolve around unrealistic expecations of the homeowner coupled with no real ability to fund the legal work for all of the multitude of issues they want to raise. Adding the conspiracy theory of the court making a conveniently omiited smoking gun confession on the record simply adds fuel to the desperation fire common to these cases. That stated, if you are serious about pursuing a legal mal claim here, you will need to get all of the records together, and likelt spend several thousand dollars on a lawyer to review them and provide an opinion as to what is anything was done improperly by the lawyer and go from there.... Read More

and THIS is why attorney's charge so much money, unreasonable clients who turn on them at the drop of a hat and think they know better what to do in court. First and foremost, simply making an objection does jack squat in such a hearing, as the court would have to sustain the objection. Second, simply accusing the other person of lying "because you know the truth" is equally useless as you would have to have conclusive EVIDENCE to show that she was lying, which is very very very difficult to to anticipate and prepare for, unless of course you have an unlimited budget, which few have absent last names of Trump, DeBartalo, Gates or Steinbrenner. Apparrently, you did NOT have enough evidence to prove jurisidiction, because as you said, the judge threw out your case. Ignoring this, again because you know better and everyone else screwed up, is as unproductive for the same reasons previously stated. Your remedy here is simply seeking appeal or possibly refiling in proper fashion. Finally, the lawyers willing to help you "pro-bono" may be far from a confession that the lawyer "blew it" but equally possible that the lawyer feels the court was wrong and has some interest in helping you sort it out, so be wary of being ungrateful if this is this case. Finally, if you feel you have EVIDENCE of perjury, then you are always free to go to the appropriate law enforcement agency, present your evidence and see if they agree and prosecute. if they DONT agree and prosecute, well.....then there you have another indication as to why the lawyer's position may have been the proper one.... Read More

The reason is with a 50K damages as you claim, its not financially viable for a lawyer to take the case on a contingent fee. That wont change, and in fact will be amplified, with you trying to take the case on "pro-se." If you are serious about it, you may just need to hire a lawyer at an hourly rate/retainer to handle it and maybe seek a mediation.... Read More

"Failure to comply" in a PIP insurance context does not generally result in cancellation of the policy, but rather not paying the claim. If the policy was cancelled, or refused renewal, this suggests that there was something that occurred in the policy application. It may be malpractice but the damages may be smal in the scheme of things. You can file a bar complaint if you want and see if they can intervene to get you the answers you seek. In the mean timeyou need to hire a new lawyer to handle the injury case ASAP... Read More

Its possible, but some of what you described is not malpractice, such as waiting for US Attorney to schedule depositions. You also run into the issue when there are limited values paid for legal fees on a case, such as the Federal Tort Claims Act. While such statutes are touted as "saving consumers money", they typically simply limit the quality and quality of the lawyering work that can be devoted to such claims or simply disenfranchises clients from lawyers. As you may imagine, no lawyer is going to spend $100,000.00 in legal billing time to recover a $10,000.00 fee. A good example of this is at the heart of the Florida Medical Malpractice provisions with a 10% fee. Touted as reducing legal fees from evil greedy lawyers, it was REALLY an effort to drive lawyers out of the med-mal arena so greedy doctors and hospital could keep thier money, since virtually no lawyers would take such cases and serious injured people simply "take one for the team" and are now crying foul (rightfully) that doctors can mangle people with impunity unless the damages are death ro catastrophic. In any event, you will need to retain a lawyer to review the case and figure out what the lawyers did or did not do and whether and how this is related to the damages you referenced.... Read More