Law departments, even when they use big firms, deal with malpractice issues

I have had little to say over the years about malpractice (See my post of Nov. 8, 2009: malpractice of law firms with 8 references.). Mostly, it has seemed to me that companies with legal departments hire capable firms and professional negligence by them rarely happens. Perhaps my belief is quite mistaken.

An article in Law Practice, July/Aug. 2010 at 31, makes clear that law firms of all sizes, even large firms with more than 100 lawyers, “face more or less the same type and proportion of legal malpractice claims.”

A column chart shows four kinds of legal malpractice claims that are filed against large firms, based on data from 16,703 claims reported to LawPro between 1999 and 2009. “Intentional wrongdoing” as about 8 percent; “administrative errors” about 17 percent; “client relations errors” about 40 percent; and “substantive errors” about 35 percent. The chart and article do not indicate how many claims were made, only the allocation by the four types.