Legal Question in Legal Malpractice in Washington

Bankruptcy/tax/legal-malpractice problem

This is what I understand from your story:(1) Your damages at the moment appear to be $1300.(2) Your lawyer has refused to pay you the $1300 for the interest and penalties imposed by the IRS.Your options are:(1) You can pay the $1300 so the interest and penalties do not continue to accrue.(2) You can seek another atty to give you further advice.(3) You can seek another atty to institute a legal malp claim -- provided you find an attorney to take a case with such low damages on a contingency basis.The time to win a malp case is enormous. Your new lawyer would have to fight the legal-malp insurer and would have to prove that YOU COULD HAVE ACHIEVED A BETTER RESULT THAN YOU DID HAD ATTY #1 NOT BEEN NEGLIGENT.

Atty #1 and/or his insurer will say: even had he not been negligent, you still would have had to pay your taxes for three years (IF IF IF IF indeed this is the case. I am not a bankruptcy atty and do not know the answer to that question.) What is curious is, (1) WHY DID YOU PAY YOUR TAXES FOR 2-1/2 YEARS? It sounds like you had NO conversation with him about the TAX issue. (2) What made you stop paying them?(3) What prompted you to go back to him and ask?Something had to have happened. What was that? I think that is critical info that you have not given us.

BOTTOM LINE: Here is my recommendation: (1) Pay the $1900 to the IRS to keep debt (the original $600 you owed + the $1300 add'l) from growing. The IRS will probably make an easy-pay plan for you. you lose nothing by asking.(2) Bring a small-claims action for $1300. Atty #1 may even settle with you instead of going into court. (3) Definitely consult with the local atty's of the type I described above. They will tell you (a) bankruptcy law and (b) legal malp law.Good luck!

Bankruptcy lawyers and taxes

Your blame may be misdirected. The requirement for discharging taxes is not thatyou be paying for 3 years, but (for income taxes in Chap. 7) that you meet the following tests:1) the due date of the return for the taxes (including automatic and approved extensions) was at least 3 years pre-petition;2) the return was filed, was not fraudulent orevasive, and, if filed late, was filed at least 2 years pre-petition;3) the taxes were not assessed within 240 days pre-petition, plus any time plus 30 days during which an offer in compromise was pendingif the OIC was made within 240 days after theassessment.

If you meet these tests, your taxes were discharged, the lawyer was right, and the IRSis subject to sanctions for violating the discharge injunction.

If not, the lawyer was wrong. But the cost ofproving in court that the lawyer was wrong, that being wrong was negligent, and that you suffered damages as a result, would seem to exceed the amount by which you were damaged.Barbara Johnson's solution might work.