Connecticut is home to Yale University, which US News recently ranked the #1 law school in the country. With the top law school in the country, it could be assumed that CT has some of the best lawyers in the country. But does this reflect the sentiment of our statewide survey? Our results say no.
Published on May 31st, 2016
by The StangerLaw LLC Research Team
Legal malpractice statistics are hard to come by. A large number of people hire an attorney every day in Connecticut, and many of those people feel like they are unfairly represented by their counsel. However, many of these cases go completely unnoticed, as the majority of clients who feel like they were victims of legal malpractice never pursue any legal action against their own attorney.
The American Bar Association publishes statistics on the most common legal malpractice claims by type of error, but we found it was very difficult to pinpoint exactly how many cases were brought against attorneys for legal malpractice.
We wanted to know not only how many people have hired a lawyer in Connecticut, but how many people believed they were victims of malpractice. It is currently not very difficult to prove legal malpractice in Connecticut. To prove malpractice you must prove 4 things: duty (the attorney owed you a duty to act properly), breach (the attorney breached the duty), causation (the conduct hurt you financially), and damages (you suffered financial losses as a result).
The reality is that perhaps lawyers are not always properly educated on the ever-changing legal sphere.That leads us to the question of: should Connecticut judges require lawyers to have continuing legal education, just like doctors are required to have continued medical education?
We surveyed 1,000+ actual Connecticut residents to see whether they were happy or not with how they were represented when hiring a lawyer. We asked:
Have you ever hired a lawyer who you believe committed Legal Malpractice?
The key data points from the survey are displayed in the graphic below.
