Legal malpractice occurs when an attorney fails to fulfill their professional obligations to clients and harm results. They do not adhere to current professional standards, breach their fiduciary duty to their clients or display gross negligence that negatively impacts one of their clients.
Every legal malpractice case is unique, but many of them share certain components. When a lawyer makes an error that is so obvious that any other lawyer could have avoided it, then the situation may constitute legal malpractice.
Those hoping to pursue litigation in civil court often rely on a lawyer to help them develop their case. Their attorney decides when to file and what to include in the documents presented to the courts. In some cases, lawyers make major mistakes by failing to take action in a timely fashion. If a lawyer does not assist their clients in addressing a legal matter before the statute of limitations expires, that situation could constitute legal malpractice.
What is a statute of limitations?
There are legal limits to how long people can wait to handle legal matters. For example, there are statutes of limitations that apply to criminal prosecution for many types of offenses. If the state cannot bring a case within a certain number of years, prosecutors may never be able to charge the criminal.
There are similar rules that apply to civil litigation. If too much time passes, the people affected by a drunk driver or a defective product may lose the right to hold the other party easily accountable. Colorado imposes different statutes of limitations in different cases. Most personal injury lawsuits are subject to a two-year statute of limitations. The timeline is even shorter if the plaintiff wants to take action against a government entity.
When an attorney fails to acknowledge the statute of limitations and act before it expires, they do their clients a real disservice. Their clients may no longer be able to pursue compensation and justice in the civil courts because they made an error that most legal professionals could avoid.
In such cases, frustrated clients may be able to take legal action against the lawyer whose negligence ultimately prevented them from seeking economic justice. Reviewing the history of a case and a lawyer’s conduct with a skilled malpractice team can help frustrated clients determine if they may have grounds for a legal malpractice lawsuit. Frustrated clients who take legal action against their lawyers successfully can recover some of the losses triggered by a blown statute of limitations.