Melrose Law stands beside victims in North Carolina when the negligence of their own lawyers causes them to lose the support they need to recover. Melrose Law aggressively seeks to reverse the damage done by careless attorneys. We give clients a second chance to heal physically and financially.
Legal Malpractice is a breach of trust and the law. We help you litigate against attorneys who fail to uphold their duty and win your family the support they were counting on. Contact Melrose Law of North Carolina for a free case review to go over your options and find out how to hold your former attorney fully liable for mishandling your case.
What Is Legal Malpractice?
Every professional makes mistakes. Sometimes it is the doctor who misses the diagnosis. Sometimes it is the truck driver who runs through a stop sign. The victim then seeks help from an attorney to seek fair compensation. Sadly, the lawyer can make a bad situation even worse by committing legal malpractice. This act of carelessness can cause the victim to lose a personal injury, malpractice, estate administration, or other lawsuit.
Legal malpractice cases can add insult to injury. Melrose Law has significant experience helping people who have fallen victim to their attorney’s mistake or neglect. These cases can be very challenging and complex. Not only do we have to prove the lawyer was negligent, but we also must prove the damages you would have recovered with competent legal representation.
Fortunately, the law also holds attorneys responsible for their professional negligence. We help people who need to file claims against their own attorneys, and help the client unravel the layers of mistakes that may seem hopeless at first. The bottom line is that if the client can prove they had a good case and that the lawyer’s mistake cost them the ability to make a recovery, then the client can make the very same recovery against the attorney and the law firm.
What Do I Have to Prove in a North Carolina Legal Malpractice Case?
If a lawyer doesn’t take the actions that a competent legal professional would take, and a case is lost because of it, then there may be a claim for legal malpractice. For example, the attorney may miss a deadline for filing a case. The attorney might miss an important court hearing. These actions can destroy a victim’s chance to seek justice and help.
In a legal malpractice claim, we have to prove these factors and others:
- What specific mistakes were made by the attorney.
- What a competent lawyer would or should have done in the case. This is often proven with the help of expert witnesses, often legal experts.
- We have to prove the harm to our client.
The harm is sometimes easy to show to a judge and jury. Victims may have been left with injuries that someone else caused. They may face a stack of medical bills. Victims may have no chance to pay any part of these expenses while they can’t work.
These victims were probably desperate for financial help. And now, due to a lawyer’s negligence, they may get zero in support at such a difficult time.
Our North Carolina Legal Malpractice Lawyers hold other attorneys accountable. We seek justice when their mistakes put victims at risk of financial devastation and leave them unable to support their families.
Missed Statute of Limitations
The most common error is when the attorney misses the deadline to file the complaint. In North Carolina, a claim for personal injury must be filed within three years from the date of the accident. For accidents causing wrongful death, the deadline is only two years.
These legal deadlines are known as statutes of limitations. They put a time limit on how long you can wait to file a claim after something like a car accident, a medical mistake, or financial impropriety. A statute of limitations would also affect how long you have to file an appeal.
If the victim or surviving family member seeks legal help within the statute of limitations, the lawyer has a duty to file the case on time. If the attorney fails to file the complaint before the deadline, the client loses the right to sue the at-fault doctor, truck driver, grocery store, etc., for damages. The Court has no choice but to dismiss the case.
The only remedy for the victim who may be facing massive unpaid medical bills and other harm is to hire another attorney to file a claim or lawsuit against the first lawyer seeking the very same damages that were caused in the accident. The attorney, or most likely his professional malpractice insurance company, will then pay the very same damages to the victim that should have been paid by the at-fault doctor, truck driver, etc.
What To Do If A Lawyer Misses a Statute of Limitations in NC
What If My Lawyer Misses a Court Date?
Other types of legal malpractice claims arise when the attorney misses important court dates and is unprepared for a trial.
Lawyers might fail their clients in these regards:
- Failure to attend a court date
- Failure to respond to written discovery
- Failure to do adequate legal research
- Failure to hire appropriate experts
- Failure to forward settlement offers to his/her client
- Failure to respond to requests for admissions during the litigation
These acts of negligence and others will often result in a lost case for the client. But instead of allowing a victim to face their recovery costs and financial damages alone, Melrose Law takes swift action.
For example, if a statute of limitations was missed, then the lawyer is liable for the same amount of damages that should have been recovered from the car insurance company. The client may also have lost out on compensation for lost hours at work.
Instead of the car insurance company paying our client, it is the defendant attorney’s malpractice insurance that pays the settlement. We also help victims refile their failed claims when possible to secure even more support for their recoveries.
Can My Case Be Hurt by a Lawyer’s Conflict of Interest?
Attorneys are generally only permitted to represent one client in a case. This ensures that the attorney is completely loyal to their client’s individual interests. They are not supposed to balance the competing needs and desires of multiple interested parties to a case.
Attorneys are also prohibited from representing a new client against a former client about the same subject matter. This makes sense because you have the right to complete confidentiality with your attorney, and should never face a situation where those private communications could later be used by the same attorney in a later case against you.
- Representing more than one client for the same case.
- Representing a new client against a former client for the same subject matter.
- A lawyer having a relationship with one of the witnesses in a case.
- A lawyer having a business relationship with the opposing attorney or another party involved in the case.
All of these circumstances can lead to divided loyalties, which can easily harm a client’s chances of earning a settlement or judgment.
If you discover that your attorney had a conflict of interest, and you lost your case as a result of that conflict, it may be possible to file a legal malpractice claim against your lawyer and the law firm. Everyone has the right to expect that the attorney is only helping the client and is not helping anyone else (or themselves) during the claim process.
More Information on a Conflict of Interest in an NC Case
Will Another Lawyer Represent Me If I Must Sue My Former Attorney for Legal Malpractice?
Most law firms will not sue other lawyers. At Melrose Law, we think about these cases differently. We understand that everyone makes mistakes, but we also believe that everyone should be held legally accountable for all the harm he or she causes.
We carry our own professional malpractice insurance. We explain to our clients that this insurance is really not for our protection, but rather for our clients to have a source of funds should we make a serious mistake and cause them harm. The insurance is for them to be made whole.
Is My Lawyer Guilty of Mishandling Client Funds?
This violation of trust occurs when the funds that a client gives to a lawyer are mishandled or purposely stolen.
These are just a few of the signs that the funds you provided are being mismanaged:
- Problems with receiving your settlement money
- A lack of transparency for what funds are being used for
- Invoices with duplicate charges
- Invoices with unexplained charges and vague explanations
- Strange requests for more money for questionable reasons
- Being charged when your attorney is working under a contingency agreement (meaning your attorney shouldn’t charge anything unless the case is won)
- The client’s money and the lawyer’s money being kept in one account
- Funds missing from the client’s trust fund
When a lawyer asks a client for funds, the funds are sometimes put into a trust account to keep them separate from the law firm’s money. When money is missing from the trust account without clear explanations, there may be grounds for a legal malpractice lawsuit.
Trust Account Legal Malpractice Lawyer
Fees For Legal Malpractice Cases
We handle all these cases on a contingency basis, just like all the other personal injury and wrongful death cases we handle. The good news is that the client will never pay more than the underlying contingency fee that the first lawyers were charging, who made the mistake. And, if the claim against the lawyer is lost, you will not have to pay Melrose Law a fee for pursuing the claim against the first attorney.
We understand how frustrating and intimidating it can be when you are the victim of some misfortune or you have lost a loved one. We can help you navigate successfully to obtain the same damages your first attorney should have provided.
Please contact us for a free consultation. There’s no obligation, and this meeting is completely confidential. We represent clients in the Asheville area and across North Carolina.
