Legal Question in Legal Malpractice in California
is this legal malpractice?
an elderly friend filed a personal injury suit using a man she hired who represented himself as an atty to her but she later found out was only an office manager/process server for a law group. she feels this man did not work very hard to get her a very good settlement in the first place and then also may have overstepped his bounds when he took the action of paying off her medical bills hiimself from her settlement (but after recieving his portion first) later sending her her small portion leftover along with a form to sign giving him her permission to pay those bills. my question is-since she did not sign any forms giving him permission to do this (and she did not want him to settlle these bills as some may have already been paid etc) as well as the fact that he is not even an actual legal atty-does this qualify as a legal malpractice case? please enlighten me on this as much as you can thankyou!
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: is this legal malpractice?
She should have a -real- attorney review all documents and correspondence immediately. Only an attorney can practice law and is entitled to a portion of her money. Does she have a retainer agreement with a law firm? If she has doubts that the law firm represented her, she might contact the firm's managing partner directly. Perhaps the firm is not aware that its office manager may be unlawfully practicing law.
Re: is this legal malpractice?
This sounds like a 'PI mill' instead of a legitimate law firm. Unauthorized practice of law is illegal. If that is what happened, she should file a complaint to the State Bar of California and request their help in dealing with the problem. Also, if she believes the settlement was way less than the case was worth, or that the bills were mishandled, then she would have a claim against the 'mill' for that in the form of malpractice and fraud. She could file a 'fee dispute' against them through the local county Bar Association regarding the bills and payments.
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