Legal Malpractice Claims and Real Estate– OOPS-

According to an American Bar Association, real estate lawyers are being sued more often for bad advice arising from real estate transactions According to a recent study of various insurance companies, and their claims between 2004 and 2007, malpractice claims against lawyers related to real estate transactions climbed four percentage points to 20 percent of all such malpractice cases between 2003 and 2007, a four percent jump.

Lawyers are getting sued for errors in real estate transactions with alarming frequency, and were second only to attorneys handling personal injury claims, which also rose in frequency.

Real estate transactions apparently went bad in a variety of ways for the lawyers. Such claims stemmed from conflicts of interest, closing and contract-drafting errors, and problems linked to zoning and escrow issues.

The study results are based on a survey of insurance companies that provide legal malpractice coverage in the United States and Canada, with 18 U.S. and six Canadian companies responding to the investigation.

Finding lawyers willing to take New York State legal malpractice claims against other lawyers can often be difficult.

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