Legal Malpractice

St. Louis Lawyer Handling Legal Malpractice Cases

For most individuals, it is rare to have to hire an attorney and television may be their only exposure to the legal profession. Often, the way law is actually practiced in real life is significantly different from what takes place on Law and Order. Lawyers are held to the highest ethical and professional standards by their professional responsibility rules. If you have hired a lawyer who has failed to meet those standards, and has caused you to miss an opportunity to recover money damages or complete a transaction, you are entitled to sue for damages.

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Free consultation about your legal malpractice case

No lawyer fees unless you recover money for your legal malpractice claim

At Allan, Grimm, and Summary, attorney John Allan is ready to help you hold your former lawyer accountable for the losses that occurred because of his or her negligence. John Allan has received the AV rating* from Martindale-Hubbell and is listed in Martindale-Hubbell's Bar Registry of Preeminent Lawyers, as well as Who's Who in America. With more than 30 years of legal experience, has seen it all. On behalf of many clients, we have successfully sued lawyers for negligence such as missing filing deadlines, breach of confidentiality, conflict of interest and outright billing fraud. Because of our extensive experience in the area of legal malpractice, John Allan is often called upon as an expert witness in professional negligence lawsuits against individual lawyers and entire law firms.

Our experience in a wide range of legal areas also makes us qualified to provide aggressive representation on the other side of the table, working for legal professionals who are in danger of losing their license because of addiction to drugs or alcohol.

Missed Deadlines - Conflict of Interest - Fraud - Breach of Confidentiality

If you are considering filing a legal malpractice lawsuit, contact a lawyer with experience and a complete understanding of the ethical and legal issues involved. Allan, Grimm, and Summary is recognized in Missouri and throughout the Midwest for our skills and success in legal malpractice cases.

Some additional information about the legal profession

Lawyers are trained in both the process and substance of law. They are trained in how the law is made, how it is implemented, how the judicial system works, and how to find out what the law is. This is the process of the law.

A lawyer is also trained in finding what the law is, interpreting the law, implementing the law, and analyzing the law. That is the substance of the law.

Aside from that a lawyer is in a business like any other. The lawyer performs a service. The client has to have a problem that is open to the lawyer's services.

For example a lawyer can get the insurance company of a negligent driver to pay an injured client money.

If the negligent driver does not have insurance, it will be very difficult to force the driver to pay money even if the best of all attorneys handles the matter, because most people do not have enough money to cover an injured person's damages.

So how do you select a lawyer? It will help to have a well-defined problem. Select a lawyer who has some interest in the type of problem that you have, or an interest in you, or some knowledge of the circumstances. Select a lawyer with whom you are comfortable and acts the way you would expect i.e., he or she answers your questions, returns your phone calls, keeps appointments, and shows up in court on time. All of us have violated these things a time or two, but if it is repeated, it should be a warning. If something does not seem right to you, ask a question about it. Understand your fee arrangement with the lawyer.

There is no "best" lawyer or "toughest" lawyer. There are lawyers who do their jobs well, and these are most of the members of the profession. This the type of lawyer you need.

Finally, expect to pay for the service you receive. Only lawyers who are not very good lawyers fail to set appropriate, clear fees.

In the event there is a breakdown in the attorney/client relationship, you may have a claim against the lawyer. All lawyers are held to a standard of care, and you may have a claim against your lawyer for neglect, fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, or under another theory of liability. To prevail on such a claim it is usually required that:

• There is an attorney-client relationship
• There is a breach of the standard of care
• The breach was the proximate cause of damage
• The damage would not have occurred "but for" the lawyer's neglect

Consider this example You owe someone $10,000 and get sued. You then hire a lawyer to defend you, but if the lawyer fails to show up in court, you could lose the case because of that. Showing up in court is what you hired the lawyer to do, but the court could enter a judgment by default against you in your absence. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that you will win a legal malpractice claim against the lawyer. You owed the money anyway.

Contact our offices in St. Louis, Missouri, to discuss your legal malpractice case with attorney John Allan today.

*CV, BV, and AV are registered certification marks of Reed Elsevier Properties, Inc., used in accordance with the Martindale-Hubbell certification procedures, standards, and policies.

Martindale-Hubbell is the facilitator of a peer review rating process. Ratings reflect the confidential opinions of members of the Bar and the Judiciary. Martindale-Hubbell ratings fall into two categories—legal ability and general ethical standards.