The Ethical Pitfalls in Practice: Legal Malpractice Theories of Liability, Defenses, and Proactive Risk Avoidance

Attorneys, regardless of their experience, should recognize and evaluate their legal risk to avoid damaging ethical violations and costly malpractice lawsuits. This course will examine the rules of professional conduct and most common sources of legal malpractice, the main elements of legal malpractice claims and related causes of action, the common defenses to these claims and the steps one should proactively take in your practice to minimize ethical violations and risks of claims.

The course will provide the prospective of Kristopher M. Dennis and Robert J. Pariser, who combined have over 35 years of experience in both defending and prosecuting attorneys in legal malpractice claims. The course will also consider basic practice management steps that could assist in avoiding ethical violations and subsequent legal malpractice claims.   

Learning Objectives:

1. Review an attorney’s ethical obligations, the violation of which can lead to malpractice claims
2. Examine basic theories of liability against attorneys, and unique exposure to liability in specific practice areas
3. Develop strategies for maintaining compliance with an attorney's duty of care, in addition to other basic risk management for attorneys
   

This course originally appeared as a part of our September 2018 Bridge the Gap Event.