Medical malpractice law firm Lawsuits

Attorneys have a fiduciary responsibilities to their clients and they are expected act with skill, diligence and care. Attorneys make mistakes, just like any other professional.

Some mistakes made by attorneys are malpractice. To prove legal negligence, the aggrieved must show the duty, breach of duty, causation and damages. Let's take a look at each one of these aspects.

Duty-Free

Doctors and medical professionals take the oath of using their skills and experience to treat patients and not causing further harm. The duty of care is the foundation for the right of patients to receive compensation if they are injured by medical malpractice attorneys. Your attorney can assist you determine whether or not your doctor's actions violated this duty of care, and whether those breaches caused injury or illness to you.

To prove a duty to care, your lawyer must to show that a medical professional had a legal relationship with you that owed you a fiduciary responsibility to exercise a reasonable level of skill and care. To prove that the relationship existed, you may require evidence, such as the records of your doctor and patient or eyewitness testimony, as well as expert testimony from doctors who have similar experience, education and training.

Your lawyer must also prove that the medical professional violated their duty of care by not adhering to the standards of practice that are accepted in their area of expertise. This is often known as negligence. Your attorney will compare the actions of the defendant to what a reasonable individual would do in the same situation.

Your lawyer must demonstrate that the defendant's breach of duty directly led to damage or loss to you. This is referred to as causation. Your attorney will use evidence including your doctor's or patient records, witness testimony, and expert testimony, to prove that the defendant's failure to adhere to the standard of care was the direct cause of injury or loss to you.

Breach

A doctor is required to perform a duty of care to his patients that conforms to the highest standards of medical practice. If a doctor does not meet these standards and the failure results in injury, medical malpractice and negligence could occur. Typically the testimony of medical professionals with similar training, skills and certifications will assist in determining what the minimum standard of care should be in a particular circumstance. Federal and state laws, along with institute policies, define what doctors are expected to do for certain kinds of patients.

To prevail in a malpractice lawsuit it must be proved that the doctor violated his or her duty to care and that this violation was the direct cause of an injury. In legal terms, this is known as the causation factor and it is vital that it is established. If a doctor needs to perform an x-ray on an injured arm, they must place the arm in a casting and correctly set it. If the doctor was unable to do so and the patient was left with permanent loss of use of that arm, then malpractice attorney may have occurred.

Causation

Attorney malpractice claims are based on evidence that demonstrates that the attorney's errors resulted in financial losses for the client. Legal malpractice claims can be brought by the injured party for example, if the attorney fails to file the suit within the statutes of limitations and results in the case being thrown out forever.

It is important to realize that not all mistakes made by lawyers are a sign of illegal. Strategies and mistakes do not typically constitute malpractice and lawyers have the ability to make judgment calls as long as they are reasonable.

The law also grants attorneys considerable latitude to not perform discovery on behalf of their clients provided that the failure was not unreasonable or negligent. Inability to find important information or documents like medical or witness statements can be a case of legal malpractice. Other instances of malpractice include the inability to add certain defendants or claims, like the mistake of not remembering a survival number for wrongful death cases, or the repeated failure to communicate with clients.

It is also important to remember the fact that the plaintiff has to show that if it wasn't due to the lawyer's negligent behavior, they would have prevailed. The claim of malpractice by the plaintiff will be rejected if it is not proven. This makes it difficult to file a legal malpractice claim. It is crucial to find an experienced attorney.

Damages

A plaintiff must prove that the attorney's actions caused actual financial losses in order to prevail in a legal malpractice suit. This must be shown in a lawsuit using evidence such as expert testimony, correspondence between client and attorney as well as billing records and other documentation. In addition the plaintiff must show that a reasonable lawyer could have avoided the harm caused by the negligence of the attorney. This is known as proximate cause.

Malpractice occurs in many ways. The most frequent kinds of malpractice are failing to adhere to a deadline, which includes the statute of limitations, failure to perform a conflict check or other due diligence of the case, not applying law to a client's circumstance, breaching a fiduciary duty (i.e. mixing funds from a trust account the attorney's own accounts, mishandling a case and not communicating with the client are all examples of malpractice.

In most medical malpractice cases the plaintiff will seek compensatory damages. These compensations are intended to compensate the victim for out-of pocket expenses and losses such as hospital and medical bills, equipment costs to aid in recovery, and lost wages. Victims are also able to claim non-economic damages like pain and discomfort as well as loss of enjoyment from their lives, and emotional stress.

In many legal malpractice cases there are cases for punitive and compensatory damages. The former compensates victims for losses resulting from the negligence of the attorney, whereas the latter is intended to deter future malpractice by the defendant.