An ABA study on legal malpractice claims from several years ago found that the majority of money paid to plaintiffs involved cases with conflicts of interest. Conflicts allow the fact finder (judge or jury) to award attorneys’ fees, punitive damages and a disgorgement of fees paid to the liable lawyer. Worse yet, these types of damages are usually not covered by a lawyer’s errors and omissions insurance policy.
Managing your clients and firm is more than a full time job, and things seem to get more hectic every month as your business grows. While you’re busy running the firm, others are making decisions regarding processes, people and systems. Even what may be considered a trivial operational decision could lead to errors that cost time, money, client relationships, reputation and even your livelihood.
Daily Report journalist Mark Neisse sought Douglas Chandler ’s feedback for the July 12 article, “Gwinnett reaches deal with overbilling lawyer,” about a metro Atlanta attorney who admitted overbilling Gwinnett County for more than $10,000 of indigent client representation.
I was using Siri yesterday to dictate a text, and Apple’s intelligent personal assistant just couldn’t get my message right. Siri thought that my “Motion to Quash” was a request for websites about squash. I was surprised at the number of squash recipes available online, but that wasn’t helping me resolve my issue.
