Legal Question in Legal Ethics in Michigan

Re: Legal Malpractice

Hmmm.

If you gave your attorney permission to sign a judgment on your behalf, surely you knew the amount and were willing to take the risk that bankruptcy was an option. From what you wrote, the debt was valid and you would have been stuck with it regardless of what she told you.

So, step one is to take responsibility for YOUR judgment lapse, because otherwise you're likely to throw good money after bad.

Second, you didn't say you were living in MI when the judgment was entered, so if you were living in OH it doesn't matter whether she knew about MI law or not.

Third, you have to prove that the advice she gave you AT THE TIME was invalid. It may well have been, but you are going to have to prove it (and that's hard even in the best of cases) on top of proving that you were blameless in the entire affair.

Be prepared to prove that the debt was invalid because you could have won the underlying case. Otherwise, her advice begins to look more and more prudent: save the cost of trial, just admit the debt and move on.

Whether you chose to file bankruptcy or not, no prudent lawyer is going to guarantee that you don't have to actually pay a debt and it's definitely going to be your word against hers.

If you think that you're going to get sympathy from a judge by arguing that you want to set aside a judgment because you didn't get to file bankruptcy and wash away a valid debt like your attorney said, you're in for a big surprise.