Learning some lessons from the recent Hunter Maclean v. St. Simons Waterfront appeal.
How do you protect your internal firm communications from discovery in a legal malpractice case? The recent Hunter Maclean opinion by the Georgia Court of Appeals provides at least a little direction after so many courts around the country have issued differing opinions. Part 1 of this article presented some background information along with suggested ways to avoid conflicts of interest.
Responding to Bar Complaints.
Receiving a Bar complaint can be one of the most traumatic experiences in an attorney’s professional career. I’ve spent a lot of time writing about how to avoid Georgia State Bar complaints, but what do you do if you receive one? How you respond, and the type of assistance you seek, is absolutely critical in minimizing the disruption as well as disposition.
Douglas Chandler of Chandler Law LLC, along with Aubrey Smith of ProAssurance, presented at the August 2012 Institute of Continuing Legal Education (ICLE) Group Mentioning session. The focus of the interactive presentation was Professional Liability and Bar Complaints: Preventing, Covering and Resolving Issues.
Learning some lessons from the recent Hunter Maclean v. St. Simons Waterfront appeal.
How do you protect your internal firm communications from discovery in a legal malpractice case? The answer begins when you first believe that your firm has received a threat of a possible claim. The recent Hunter Maclean opinion provides at least a little clarification after so many different court opinions across the country.
An ABA study on legal malpractice claims from several years ago found that the majority of money paid to plaintiffs involved cases with conflicts of interest. Conflicts allow the fact finder (judge or jury) to award attorneys’ fees, punitive damages and a disgorgement of fees paid to the liable lawyer. Worse yet, these types of damages are usually not covered by a lawyer’s errors and omissions insurance policy.
Managing your clients and firm is more than a full time job, and things seem to get more hectic every month as your business grows. While you’re busy running the firm, others are making decisions regarding processes, people and systems. Even what may be considered a trivial operational decision could lead to errors that cost time, money, client relationships, reputation and even your livelihood.
Daily Report journalist Mark Neisse sought Douglas Chandler ’s feedback for the July 12 article, “Gwinnett reaches deal with overbilling lawyer,” about a metro Atlanta attorney who admitted overbilling Gwinnett County for more than $10,000 of indigent client representation.
I was using Siri yesterday to dictate a text, and Apple’s intelligent personal assistant just couldn’t get my message right. Siri thought that my “Motion to Quash” was a request for websites about squash. I was surprised at the number of squash recipes available online, but that wasn’t helping me resolve my issue.
Chandler Law’s Top 10 Tips – Part II
Being involved in a professional liability issue can be one of the most traumatic experiences in an attorney’s career. In my CLE seminar on Risk Management, Legal Ethics, and Professional Liability, we cover many of the things you can do today to avoid these “Houston, we have a problem” situations.
As I mentioned in Part I of this article, these tips were derived from my actual experience defending attorneys against Georgia State Bar complaints and representing plaintiff-clients in professional liability cases.