I am pleased to add The Ethical Quandary blog to the AvoidAClaim blogroll.
The Ethical Quandary features posts on legal ethics and litigation issues by Michael Downeyand several other Hinshaw Culbertson LLP lawyers.
This blog has great posts on legal, ethics, discipline, risk management, and related business and professional issues, albeit with a bit of U.S. focus sometimes.
Do you know where the greatest risks of a malpractice claim come from? More importantly—did you know there are simple steps you can take to reduce the risk of a claim being made against you?
The July/August issue of Law Practice Magazine is devoted to helping you avoid the dreaded allegation of legal malpractice, as well as other dangers to your law practice.
LAWPRO’s claims statistics indicate that four out of five lawyers will face at least one claim during the course of their careers. So the odds are you have already experienced a claim or two—and if not, you likely will. Let’s call this the bad news. What’s the good news? Many claims are preventable. The surprise for most lawyers—and the key take-away—is that failures to know or apply substantive law do not cause the majority of malpractice claims. The other significant causes of claims are task and deadline management errors, lawyer-client communications issues and conflicts of interest. I review the common errors in our cover story, and explain how improving basic law practice management skills can reduce your risk of a claim. The Web Extra has details of The Most Common Legal Malpractice Claims by Type of Alleged Error for US and Canadian claims.
Conflicts expert William Freivogel brings us up to date on conflicts risks, and Malcolm Mercer walks through the steps law firms can take to implement risk management strategies. Chris Stiegemeyer explains what underwriters look for (and don’t want to see) when reviewing malpractice insurance applications—and he has tips to help lower your premium.
In terms of unpleasant things, difficult clients probably rank slightly behind a malpractice claim for most lawyers. Justice Carole Curtis, who practiced family law for 30 years, discusses how to protect your practice and sanity when dealing with different types of difficult clients, while Sheila Blackford describes how to recognize them. A note of thanks to Sheila for her assistance in putting this issue together as well.
To reduce exposure to other risks, be sure to read Jim Calloway’s tips for recognizing bad cheque scams, along with David Ries’s explanation of new and expanding obligations to protect confidential client data. With all the foolishness happening on the Web, the issue would be incomplete without a discussion of online dangers. Michael Downey guides us through the online trouble spots, with invaluable advice on avoiding liability. It can be a dangerous world out there.
It was great to have the opportunity to spread the claims prevention gospel to Law Practice readers – and to share it further with Avoid A Claim readers – and I hope this issue of Law Practice helps you stay out of trouble.
Cross posted on Slaw.ca
Serving as a director of a charitable or not-for-profit corporation can be a rewarding but potentially risky experience. A director can be held personally liable for his or her own actions or failures to act, as well as jointly and severally liable with the other members of the board of directors. Directors with specialized knowledge and expertise, such as lawyers, are held to a higher standard of care. LAWPRO’s standard professional liability insurance policy provides coverage only for the “professional services” that a lawyer provides as a lawyer. It does not provide coverage for liability arising as a result of a lawyer’s actions as a director.
Accordingly, here are some questions you should ask yourself before serving as a director on the board of a charity or not-for-profit organization.
If you are contemplating sitting on a non-profit board, please consider the above questions so you can understand and assess the risks of doing so.
An Acrobat PDF version of this checklist is available on the LAWPRO website.
The issues that arise when dealing with clients in hard times have come up in a few of my recent discussions with lawyers and in some of the claims LAWPRO is now seeing. This prompted me to think about an article that recently appeared in LAWPRO’s new Webzine.)
I posted a link to the article on SLAW two months ago, but thought the points in it are worth repeating for readers of AvoidAClaim. Not just to highlight the risks, but also to remind lawyers of the steps they can take to reduce their exposure to a malpractice claim and to encourage them to use the resources on the practicePRO.ca website to accomplish this – see a list of these resources at the end of this article.
When times are good, bumps in the road won’t always cause problems. Clients are upbeat and they want the deal to close, their problem resolved or the litigation matter to proceed. Happy clients are far less likely to sue their lawyers for malpractice.
However, in tough times, clients squeezed by money problem scan become unhappy and they will be more likely to look for ways to allege that their lawyers made a mistake. In a similar fashion, lawyers squeezed by financial problems can also find themselves more likely to engage in risky behaviour. Unhappy clients and risky lawyer behaviour translate into more LAWPRO claims.
In good times and bad, avoiding a legal malpractice claim requires that you understand where the risks are so that you can respond to them by proactively taking steps to reduce your exposure to a claim. As you will see, the risk management strategies you should employ in good times and bad are essentially the same. And, as clients are likely to hold you to a higher standard when money is tight, being proactive with risk management becomes even more important in tough times.
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SLAW