In reality, it’s harder to win a legal malpractice suit than a medical one. That’s not because of any vast conspiracy, though. It’s merely that there’s a LOT more flexibility in “how to try a case” than in “How to treat a pulmonary emobolism.”

Some truly amazing legal minds use very different tactics. So there’s much less of a “standard” to work from.

There’s also the causation element. Just like in a medmal case: it’s nto enough that you did something wrong. You also have to caused the harm BECAUSE of what you did. So you essentially need to prove that you “would have won” if the lawyer hadn’t fucked up.

Obviously, this is very difficult to do.

Finally: lawyers settle. If we’re wrong, we usually know it. So fewer cases against lawyers tend to go to trial in any event.

If a client is unhappy, they usually just refuse to pay the lawyer. And guess what? It’s INCREDIBLY difficult to win a case against your own client for that sort of thing, even if you DID do a good job and even if your client DID deserve the bad outcome. Plus it’s a PR nightmare for obvious reasons. So you just let it slide.

Or maybe you can read minds? If so, then that’s pretty cool. I applaud you for that. If not, you’re basically mouthing off about a case you know nothing about.

As for why other lawyers wouldn’t be after him, two reasons. One, we haven’t read the transcript either – novel idea, knowing the facts, eh? And two, it’s not our claim – it’s the family’s.

Perhaps your uninformed outrage will serve a greater purpose, though. Can we count on you to contact plaintiff’s attorneys in your area and let them know you’re available to review medical records in their cases?

Any self-respecting otolaryngologist or anesthesiologist could tell you that this patient should NOT have been operated on in an outpatient surgical center given the underlying co-morbidities. That the family’s fool of a lawyer couldn’t figure out that THAT was the strategy to pursue to get the family justice (that’s what it’s all about anyway ISN’T IT??) rather than the ludicrous one of harping on the morphine dosing in the recovery room, proves how incompetent he was. Why aren’t any of you legal beagles out there demanding this idiot’s head??

Sounds like a poor way to start, I agree.

The only comment that was made was that the fact you don’t is not really surprising, given how few stats are kept of any different types of lawsuits. You were trying to make a point to further your cause, but really had no factual basis. Which is fine. The truth is, unless you’ve done some survey of legal malpractice claims, you have no idea what kinds of actions lead to legal malpractice claims.

That July 2004 malpractice verdict Anonymous points to–where the lawyers wrote a deliberately false letter to its client to the benefit of another client–was the lawyer equivalent of Dr. Defendant telling a patient that he didn’t need chemotherapy for his treatable cancer because the doctor wanted to sell him sugar pills that he deliberately falsely told the patient would cure his cancer. I think even the doctors here would agree that should be actionable.

And I’d guess you don’t understand the standard for legal malpractice. After all, most physicians don’t even know the standard for medical malpractice.

Do you?