What Are the Most Common Complaints Against Attorneys?

Attorneys can be both absolutely essential and also very costly, and this can lead to certain expectations when it comes to case outcomes, professionalism, and other aspects of the attorney-client relationship. All attorneys practicing in the Atlanta area are bound by the laws of the Georgia State Bar, however, the level of quality of all attorneys in Atlanta is far from equal. While attorneys in violation of bar rules may be subject to discipline, if these violations have cost you money, they could also entitle you to damages.

When you hire an attorney, you become a consumer of legal services, and like with any consumer relationship, you and your lawyer owe one another rights and responsibilities. Clients will generally be obligated to pay their attorney and to provide them with complete and accurate information so that they can advise the client correctly. Attorneys however have broader responsibilities towards their clients and owe them a variety of duties concerning the quality of legal services they provide. Complaints against attorneys usually involve breaches of these duties that can negatively impact the outcome of a case or claim.

In this article, we’ll explore some of the most common complaints against attorneys that you might hear. We’ll focus particularly on those actions taken by attorneys that can lead to financial harm to their clients or negatively impact their cases. As you’ll learn, when you experience financial losses as a result of the ineffective, insufficient, or non-timely performance of your attorney, you could be entitled to compensation through a legal malpractice claim.

Conflict of Interest

When you hire an attorney, their duty is to you and solely you within the case at hand. So long as the law and the rules of the court are followed, your attorney is meant to do everything in their power to support the best possible outcome in your case, in line with your interests alone. If your attorney has a conflict of interest in a case or claim, that means that they also have a duty or obligation to another party in the lawsuit.

For example, if you are suing a manufacturer for an injury due to a defective product, and that manufacturer is a regular client of an attorney, that attorney should not take your case. For them to take a case against one of their other clients would create a conflict, as an attorney generally cannot serve the best interests of opposing parties in a case.

Inattentiveness and Non-Responsiveness

Purchasing legal services would seemingly entitle the client to receive timely updates on the case and to also be able to speak with their attorney as necessary throughout the process. One of the most common complaints about attorneys, and one of the leading causes of lost cases, is inattentiveness and non-responsiveness. If you cannot get through to your attorney, you cannot receive updates, and you cannot provide them with information that could be essential to your case.

Not being able to get your attorney on the phone is one level of non-responsiveness, while the other more serious form is a failure to respond to the court or to motions filed by the opposing party. Cases are governed by deadlines, whether in terms of responding to a motion by the opposing party or when it comes to filing a case within the statute of limitations. Cases have an expiration date known as the statute of limitations. If your attorney is inattentive and misses the deadline, you could lose your right to seek damages at any point in the future, bringing us to the next complaint of procrastination.

Procrastination and Neglect

As mentioned, cases cycle around deadlines. If your case is in the pretrial period and you are seeking to negotiate a positive settlement outside of court, procrastination on behalf of your attorney can lead to missed opportunities. More serious procrastination can lead to missed court deadlines and lost cases.

When you have an attorney on a case and it seems like they are taking their time or not accomplishing their job in a timely manner, you are within your rights to fire them. If their delays have prejudiced your case or resulted in financial losses, you could also bring a separate legal malpractice claim against them. Through a legal malpractice suit, you may be able to recover your fees in addition to other damages.

If an attorney’s negligence resulted in damages to you, then you are entitled to compensation. Negligence is a complex legal term with four parts: duty, breach, causation, and damages. For example, once you hire an attorney, they have a duty to provide you with legal services that meet the standard that a reasonable legal professional in their place would provide. If they breach that duty, causing you an injury for which there are damages, you will have a claim for legal malpractice.

Mishandling of Money and Client Resources

Just as a point of reference, the New York State Bar in its exploration of common complaints against attorneys highlights the egregious nature of attorneys mishandling their clients’ money. If you have provided your attorney with money to hold for their services or to use for a specific purpose, they are not allowed to do anything else with that money. An indicator that your attorney may have mishandled your money is if they are unwilling to answer questions about the location of your money or resources or how they were used exactly.

Misrepresentation

The mishandling of money and misrepresentation by attorneys often go hand-in-hand. Attorneys are obligated to provide their clients with accurate legal advice based on the full facts available to them in the situation. If an attorney misrepresents what is possible in your claim, or if they make false claims about what actions they have or have not taken in your lawsuit, they may have committed legal malpractice. Oftentimes, misrepresentations are cover-ups for neglect and can indicate additional behaviors that could be harmful to you as a client.

A common form of misrepresentation engaged in by attorneys that could lead to financial losses on behalf of their clients is a misrepresentation of their experience. The level of experience that an attorney has, and their level of familiarity with the local courts and procedures, will strongly influence the outcome of your case or claim. If your attorney misrepresented their level of experience to get you to hire them on your case, and it was detrimental to the outcome, they may be liable to you for legal malpractice.

Fees and Charges

Generally, complaints concerning fees do not provide grounds for the State Bar to take disciplinary action. However, problems do sometimes arise concerning the amount of a fee amounting to an ethical violation. Such an ethical violation generally happens when an attorney takes a fee to perform particular services, then fails to do so. In some situations, when a lawyer takes a non-refundable retainer and fails to deliver on their end of the agreement, a legitimate conflict may exist.

If you have contracted the services of an attorney and they have failed to complete the services you agreed upon, you are entitled to compensation. The recovery of any fees paid out, in addition to any economic damages you might have realized due to the attorney’s failure, could be available to you as damages in a legal malpractice claim.

Attorney’s Rates Can Vary Widely and Still be Ethical and Competitive

How do you know if the rate that your attorney is charging you is competitive? At what point does the fee that your attorney charges become unethical? These are very difficult questions to answer, and they will depend largely upon the unique facts and circumstances of your case. Given that rates are agreed upon getting started, attorneys are rarely in violation of ethical guidelines for charging high rates, as the client could always refuse and find a cheaper attorney. You should expect to pay anything from $200 to $2,000 per hour depending upon the specialty involved in your case, the experience of your attorney, and their win/loss ratio.

For example, an attorney with a general practice might charge a flat rate of $250 per hour, and over the course of their career, they may have handled three personal injury cases. By contrast, an attorney exclusively focused on personal injury may have handled dozens of personal injury cases and won most of them. That attorney might charge $500 per hour or nothing up-front if they are confident that they can win your case and receive payment on contingency.

When you need to hire an attorney, the American Bar Association highlights the importance of experience. Experience both in applying the law to cases like yours and experience negotiating, filing, and winning cases in your local courts. It can take years to master the procedures of a court and to learn the preferences of its judges and officers, and working with an experienced attorney with this knowledge will support your case.

Working with an attorney who has experience in the area of the law that your case is in will support an ideal outcome. As attorneys gain greater experience and expertise in a specific type of law, they are able to charge a premium for their specialization.

Failure to Disclose Fee-Sharing Arrangements

There are some attorneys who will take any case that comes their way, then find another attorney with more experience in that field of law to subcontract their work out to. This can lead to a client not understanding the reality that the lawyer they are paying for specific services is not the actual lawyer performing the work. This can lead to you receiving services from an attorney who may be less experienced than the attorney you are paying for, leading to you receiving lesser value and potentially worse legal services.

When an attorney is outsourcing their responsibilities and engaging in fee-sharing arrangements, their clients have a right to know. If you have been harmed by your attorney’s failure to disclose subcontracting and fee-sharing, you could have a claim against them.

Attorneys Carry Legal Malpractice Insurance to Protect Against Personal Liability

Lawyers, like other professionals such as doctors or accountants, carry professional liability insurance to protect their personal assets from liability in the event they are sued for medical malpractice. Oftentimes, this insurance will also include coverage for the attorneys related to the cause of action. If you have experienced financial losses because of the services of an attorney, you will generally be filing your claim with their legal malpractice insurance provider that you will be referred to when you initiate your action.

Knowing how to phrase your legal malpractice claim and how to prove your damages with evidence will determine the outcome of your case. When you collect extensive evidence in support of your case and draft it into a convincing claim, it may be possible for you to achieve an out-of-court settlement. This can be achieved through effective communication and negotiations with the legal malpractice insurance provider. If your initial claim is denied, it can then be necessary to take them to court to collect the compensation you deserve.