Texas Legal Malpractice & Lawyer Discipline 2015

Texas case law governing legal malpractice continues to develop rapidly, and ethics committees constantly issue new opinions and guidelines. Texas Legal Malpractice & Lawyer Discipline is a practical and easy-to-use book that walks attorneys through the minefield of modern lawyering. It includes major developments over the past year, with explanatory commentary, practice tips, and helpful charts. New developments include: Coverage of the Nath decision where a “judge ordered Nath to pay monetary sanctions in the form of attorney’s fees, totaling $1,421,107.16.” This fourteenth edition contains the current law and rules concerning lawyer liability and discipline in Texas, as they have continued to develop and change. Here are a few of the highlights: Determining whether an attorney-client relationship exists also frequently results in a fact-intensive appellate inquiry-six cases on point. The anti-fracturing doctrine continues to receive substantial attention in the case law as courts attempt to distinguish between “legal malpractice” claims and separate, independent claims for breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, breach of contract. We continue to see many decisions addressing motions to disqualify counsel, often on mandamus review