Attorney dishonesty can be devastating financially to a client. You hired an attorney to manage funds, bill you honestly, and properly disburse funds from an escrow or attorney trust account. When that attorney fails to communicate with you or makes flimsy or nonsensical excuses about what happened to your funds, you may have a valid claim for legal malpractice.
Dishonesty as Malpractice
Dishonest attorneys can be guilty of malpractice or breach of fiduciary duty. Acting as fiduciary generally means that the attorney did not act in the role or capacity of an attorney. But there are acts of dishonesty by an attorney acting in that capacity that result in financial losses that can rise to malpractice:
- Improper billing—billing a client for work not done or excessively billing for simple acts
- Failing to inform a client of adverse news or outcomes or lying about it
- Filing false statements in legal documents or lying to a judge
- Making false representations to clients about business transactions
- Misrepresenting fees and costs or about the presence of liens
An attorney who steals or misappropriates your funds has likely committed a crime. Many dishonest attorneys exploit or take advantage of vulnerable clients, often those who are low-income or uneducated, leaving them with nothing and little recourse or opportunity to recover their losses.
Options to Recover Stolen Funds
If you suspect that your attorney mishandled or stole funds that were rightfully yours, options are available. Contact a legal malpractice attorney from Burns and Jain who can properly advise you and possibly take your case. Although the rogue attorney may be charged with a crime that can result in a suspension or disbarment of that attorney, you will want to know what other legal avenues you may have to recover your lost funds.
- Restitution–One possible option is restitution. If the attorney pleads guilty or is found culpable at trial, the court can order the attorney to pay you what was stolen. However, the funds may have already been spent or are not recoverable, or other clients from that attorney who suffered a similar fate as yours have exhausted the available funds. It can often take years for the guilty attorney to pay you back, if at all.
- Insurance—hopefully, the attorney had malpractice insurance that could cover your losses.
- Claim against the law firm—your legal malpractice attorney may file a claim against the law firm with whom your attorney was associated or employed. Law firms are expected to monitor their associates, and the firm may have ignored similar complaints against this attorney or acted to cover up any prior errors or misappropriations.
- Clients’ Security Board—Like most states, Massachusetts has a Clients’ Security Board consisting of seven members of the state bar who examine and distribute funds to clients who suffered financial losses due to dishonesty of a bar member who acted as an attorney or fiduciary. This fund is not available to clients who suffered losses from incompetence or a negligent act of an attorney but only from misrepresentation, fraud, or criminal acts.
Attorney as Fiduciary
When acting in a fiduciary capacity, a member of the bar is not acting as an attorney. However, acts of dishonesty resulting in financial harm or loss can be prosecuted as a crime and/or civilly. Your legal malpractice attorney can find that the individual breached his fiduciary duty when he mishandled funds in a trust where he was the trustee or stole funds in an escrow account for his own benefit or that of others who had no legal entitlement to them. A fiduciary can also be an executor of an estate or have power of attorney where he has access to bank account funds that he can withdraw to his own account and can transact deals to favor himself while lying to the client about where the funds ended up.
Although he is not guilty of legal malpractice, his breach of fiduciary duties is still actionable, and your attorney can file a lawsuit.
Retain a Legal Malpractice Attorney from Burns and Jain
No client should have to suffer from an attorney’s dishonesty and criminal acts. If your attorney will not communicate with you or has given you inexplicable or confusing explanations for your loss of funds, it is time to contact the Law Firm of Burns and Jain. A legal malpractice attorney from our firm will carefully review your case and determine if your attorney has not been forthcoming or honest about your funds. Call us at (617) 227-7423 for a consultation about your case.