A Blown Statute Of Limitations Could Constitute Legal Malpractice

When individuals hire licensed professionals to perform specialized functions, they expect those professionals to meet certain standards. For example, people hiring attorneys expect that lawyers are familiar with the area of law in which they have an issue. They expect the lawyer to provide them with reasonable guidance and a professional standard of representation.

Unfortunately, not all professionals meet the expectations of the people who hire them. As is the case in many other industries, legal professionals can commit malpractice. They may violate ethics standards or allow conflicts of interest to impact the representation and guidance they offer their clients. Other times, they may make errors and oversights that are so egregious that other lawyers could easily prevent them.

A legal malpractice lawsuit can provide compensation to those harmed by lawyers who do not fulfill their professional obligations. A blown statute of limitations is a perfect example of an attorney failing in a basic matter where most other lawyers would not.

Delays can limit client options

People intending to pursue lawsuits generally have to act relatively quickly or may lose their right to do so. Every jurisdiction has different statutes of limitations that apply to different types of legal cases. Lawyers should generally be familiar with the limitations that apply to specific types of cases.

When they fail to advise their clients on the statute of limitations, file appropriate paperwork ahead of time and prepare their clients to meet all requirements for the filing, the lawyer’s conduct may constitute actionable legal malpractice. In a tragic case out of Minnesota, grieving parents who lost a college student recently prevailed in a legal malpractice lawsuit against their former attorney.

The lawyer just barely avoided missing the statute of limitations when filing the wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of the parents. However, the attorney did not inform the parents of the requirements imposed on them as plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The parents didn’t take steps related to the estate of their son, and that resulted in the courts dismissing the lawsuit.

The statute of limitations had already passed, and thus the parents lost their opportunity to demand justice. Eventually, they did prevail in the legal case against their lawyer, winning a multi-million dollar award in that particular legal malpractice scenario.

While the specific statutes that apply are different in New Jersey than they are in Minnesota, the basic events that occurred in this case could absolutely also happen in the Garden State. When lawyers don’t take action before the statute of limitations expires or when they don’t properly educate their clients about what is necessary to take legal action, their oversights could constitute legal malpractice.

Reviewing a lawyer’s conduct in a previous legal issue with a malpractice legal team can help frustrated clients determine if they’ve experienced legal malpractice. Holding an attorney accountable can help people recover their losses and obtain a sense of closure after a disappointing outcome to a legal matter.