Legal Question in Legal Malpractice in Louisiana

I understand there are many clients that blame their attorneys for everything. My question is this, my attorney falsified a court document, sent the falsified report to the defense and to all of the members of the Medical Review Panel. First, he was thrown out of the court room for improper conduct and then, after a side bar with the Judge, the Judge determined my attorney would have to take the stand and explain to the jury why he took a Tulane Hospital Doctor's report and wrote comments to benefit the case in the comment section. The Judge did not believe his "I am an officer of the court and would not lie" He rambled on and on until the Judge cut him off and said "this is your handwriting and your note written on the bottom of this report" and my attorney replied yes.

If not enough, we lost that case and the jury said they could not believe anything he presented.

While this case was going on...it took him 12 years to get to trial. We were involved in an automobile accident. We were sitting at a light and hit from behind. My wife gave a statement immediately after the accident and told them she was not hurt, repeated that twice. Two weeks ago she had her deposition and this same attorney told her she said she was hurt. He went as far as quoting the Geico testimony, at the point Geico asked if she was injudred, he stopped quoting and told her she said her neck and back hurt. Told her to say over and over again that she was hurt. When I found out I asked for something he had in writing that sais she was hurt or that I wanted her to recant. The information he gave her was in writing, you can see the quote and you can see where he stopped and then told her what to testify to. My question is this, we have lost two cases because of him, the opposing council settled with me and said I needed to take him to the Bar and said if I left the information I had, he would take him to the bar. I want to sue him, am I better off doing that first or am I better off reporting him to the bar, waiting for the results and then suing him


Asked on 4/07/10, 6:42 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Nick Pizzolatto, Jr. Pizzolatto Law Office

You have to take him to the bar association. You can sue him at the same time. You may be able to recover a small amount from the bar victims fund, although I think that is really for an attorney who steals money from a client. Contact the bar by phone and they will help. Also get another attorney to sue him. Unfortunately any attorney who has to doctor documents etc probably has nothing to recover. I would doubt if he has malpractice insurance.

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Answered on 4/13/10, 2:18 am


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