Q: How do I I know if I have a legal malpractice suite against my attorney. He admitted he “ dropped the ball”
He is on a 1 year ACD with the judiciary courts now. And has been found guilty of negligence of 5 other cases by doing exactly as he did to me
A: If he "dropped the ball" it COULD mean he malpracticed the case. To commit legal malpractice in New York you need to show that (1) the lawyer did or failed to do something which constitutes a "mistake", which is defined as an action or failure to act that falls below the standard of care for lawyers in the legal field in question, and (2) the mistake has to have caused the client harm. Most mistakes don't cause harm. For example, if your lawyer missed a kind of deadline for filing something that can be remedied by asking the Court for permission to late-file it, then there is no harm. Or if he missed a statute of limitations but the lawsuit was a loser anyway, then there is no harm. But if he missed some important deadline and your case, which otherwise would have been a winner, is now lost, well, that's malpractice. You need to think about what "harm" his mistake, i.e., his "dropping the ball", caused you, and then you need to discuss it with a New York State legal malpractice lawyer. A
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