Q: Dear Ethics Lawyer, I have a good friend who is a lawyer at a small firm. Unfortunately, she recently has become the subject of a malpractice claim by a former client. She’s told me a little about it, and based on my knowledge of her professionalism, I’m sure it’s a claim without merit.
She has asked me to defend her and her firm in trying to get rid of this claim, and says that her insurer has agreed to defer to her choice since the amount of the claim is fully within her firm’s deductible. We don’t have any conflicts that would be a problem. We do have some unrelated cases where lawyers in her firm are on the other side of lawyers in our firm representing their clients, but no adversity to her firm itself. This isn’t a problem, is it?
The twice-monthly “Dear Ethics Lawyer” column is part of a training regimen of the Legal Ethics Project, authored by Mark Hinderks, former managing partner and counsel to an AmLaw 200 firm. Read More
August 2023
August 1 Issue – Lawyer Settlement of Client Claim
By Mark Hinderks on
Q: Dear Ethics Lawyer, A well-meaning but less competent friend of mine discovered that he has blown a statute of limitations for a client who happens to be his good friend. He feels terrible about this, and wants to make it right. Fortunately, he and his firm have the resources to do so without calling upon their malpractice insurance, the deductible of which would be a larger amount anyway.
Can he and his firm go to his client-friend, confess the error and immediately pay the full amount of damages the client might have obtained in order to solve the problem?