Practices & industries

Professional Liability

Overview

Even the most careful and highly skilled lawyers can become defendants in lawsuits. The plaintiffs in these suits - former clients and non-clients such as bankruptcy trustees, disappointed investors, state and federal regulators, state ethics boards, and even former law firm partners and employees - typically allege that the lawyer and his or her law firm committed malpractice; breached fiduciary duties; engaged in, or aided and abetted, a fraud; or violated state or federal employment laws. When confronted with legal professional liability claims, law firms need the advice of trial lawyers experienced in the legal, ethical, reputational and emotional nuances posed to the firm and the partners by such claims.

Law firms and individual lawyers have relied on our legal professional liability lawyers to represent them in these most difficult matters for decades. In addition to understanding the way in which ethical conflicts and professional negligence concepts typically intersect in legal professional liability matters, our lawyers can call on their own experience and the experience of others within the firm on the challenging transactional, corporate, litigation, intellectual property, tax, regulatory, probate and other substantive issues that underlie legal liability claims. We appreciate the value of an early and realistic assessment of the risks posed by professional liability claims, including the likelihood of success on dispositive motions based on issues such as causation and damages. And when a law firm decides to fight a malpractice claim to conclusion, our trial lawyers know how to win, regardless of whether the case will be tried before a jury, an arbitrator or a state disciplinary board.