The Anatomy of a Legal Malpractice Claim

This program will discuss the lifecycle of a legal malpractice claim from the initial client problems through claim investigation, defense strategy, resolution, and post-claim risk mitigation. Using real-world scenarios and common fact patterns, the course breaks down how malpractice claims are evaluated, pleaded, defended, and ultimately resolved, with particular attention to the ethical rules, standard-of-care issues, causation, and damages that drive outcomes. This program will benefit attorneys at all stages of practice and uses a national perspective based on the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. 

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify the core elements of a legal malpractice claim: privity, duty, breach, causation, and damages

2. Analyze common malpractice fact patterns, including missed deadlines, conflicts of interest, communication failures, and supervision breakdowns

3. Understand how rules of professional conduct intersect with malpractice exposure and how ethical missteps can escalate claim severity

4. Implement practical risk-management strategies to reduce exposure and improve defensibility