Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

When are you people going to learn that big firms only care about big bills?

Since you haven't told us what the contract says, there's no way we can tell you if the firm breached it. Most attorneys' contracts say when and how they can resign. If the contract allowed the law firm to resign this way, then your mother probably doesn't have a breach-of-contract claim based on the resignation. (It's possible that they had previously breached in other ways.)

It's also possible that your mother had already breached the contract in a way that excused further performance by the firm. To illustrate: She may have given the firm false or incomplete information about herself and/or the case. If the comments you complain about by the judge revealed such a breach, then the firm may well have been allowed -- or even required -- to withdraw.

You claim to "know" that your mother had a legal malpractice case against the firm because the case was dismissed after they backed out. That also isn't necessarily true. If the firm resigned properly, then it had no duty to continue representing her afterwards. And even if it had such a duty, its breach may not have caused your mother to lose the case. In other words, if she was going to lose anyway, then her loss was not caused by the firm's withdrawal. (Here again, there may be other grounds for a malpractice case.)

Of course, these explanations are merely possible. I don't know whether any of them are true. There are other possible explanations as well. If you and your mother really want to know whether she has a viable case against the firm, you should consult with other lawyers and tell them a lot more about what happened.

Good luck.

So here are a couple of problems. One it probably was not an Unfair Business Practice Case but it was a tort case for a breach of duty of care...

Two, based on the facts you lay out, I see no legal malpractice issue.

Three, your Mom did not lose the case because they "abandoned" the case. There would have been an opportunity to substitute counsel and the court would have allowed time to substitute.

If the insurer had proposed settlement offers why was this not negotiated? There is something your are leaving out here... Sounds like there were some rejected offers that we are not told about here.

You claim that they breached a promise to you, but there is no contract with you. the contract is between your mom and the law firm, As a third party here, you really have no standing...

Law Firms can withdraw from a case..

.There are some inherent conflict in the case as well. Your mom did not appear at a hearing. I get people's fears but if it is important they would show in court. The other conflict is you translating. You clearly have a vested interest in the outcome of the case and your perceived negativity may be pure skepticism. I wonder what the outcome would have been had your Mom been in court with a court approved, neutral interpreter.