Why Won’t You Represent Me In My Professional Negligence Case?

My worst days as an attorney are those when I have to tell a prospective client that we will not be able to take their case. The folks who come to us for help generally have a big problem that has devastated them physically or financially – or both. They need help … but that help is not always available.

This is often the scenario in a professional malpractice case. The client has truly been injured – her husband died during surgery; her business failed because the IRS has seized the accounts based on an audit her accountant said would be fine; the jury returned a verdict for the defense in his “sure thing” car wreck case.

Unfortunately, injury or damages are only one part of the equation. You also have to prove that your injury was the direct result of the other person’s wrongdoing. In the professional negligence context, you have to prove that the professional breached the “standard of care” – the level of care you would get from other providers in the same situation. Often times there are bad injuries or damages even when the care was good. Often times the patient dies even though the surgeon did everything correct. Sometimes the law changes between the time the accountant gave advice and the audit was conducted. Sometimes juries don’t do what you expect them to do. In order to prove your case, you need an expert in the same field to testify that their conduct “fell below the standard of care.” When we evaluate a professional negligence case, we often hire experts to tell us whether the standard of care has been breached. Much more often than not, the answer is no – the professional’s conduct fell within the standard of care.

The Alabama Legislature has thrown two roadblocks in the way, as well – the Medical and Legal Liability Acts. Those rules protect doctors and lawyers with favorable rules on statutes of limitation, evidence and the type of information professionals have to provide before trial. They also make these cases more expensive, for several reasons. It is not at all unusual to spend more than $100,000 (costs, not attorneys’ fees) developing a professional negligence case. I hope that this post gives you a little better insight into the reason that attorneys don’t take more of these cases than they do.