Reply to Question for lawyers - Do you charge clients for your mistakes

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My understanding is OP is saying the defendant is a business who changed their legal address six months before the suit was filed. OP provided the updated, correct address to the attorney, but [b]the attorney went off the Secretary of State listing, which had not yet been updated, and therefore delivered it to the wrong address[/b]. Then, they served it again but without the complaint so OP had to pay for another hearing. So the second mistake was totally the firm's fault and the first is borderline (reasonable to go off Secretary of State address but if they paid attention to detail they might have noticed the client gave a different address and inquired).[/quote]

I provided the attorney with the correct address, [b]the address for the defendant with the Secretary of State had the correct address[/b]. The firm was using the defendant's outdated address that the firm had in their system. [/quote]

Had do you know that the address had been updated with the Secretary of State's office ? Did you check prior to giving the attorney the address ?

Failure to include a copy of the Complaint (the lawsuit) might be the fault of the process server or, more likely, the Defendant was being untruthful about the lack of the Complaint in an attempt to get the case dismissed.

Any reputable process server would be aware that the Complaint was missing & would contact the attorney who had hired the process server.

My gut feeling is that the OP is mistaken.[/quote]

I am a lawyer and I am currently represented by a lawyer. There are a lot of really, really bad lawyers who screw up all the time. This is extremely plausible to me. I had to fire my first lawyer and could easily get him sanctioned if I wanted to put in the effort. [/quote]

You may be an attorney, but I doubt that you do litigation / trial work.

The opposing party, the Defendant, filed a challenge to the sufficiency of the service of process and appeared in court for a hearing. In notice pleading jurisdictions (the majority of jurisdictions including federal court) simple notice of a lawsuit is enough. Obviously, Defendant received such notice or Defendant would not have filed a challenge based on insufficient service of process.

Furthermore, the process server typically is required to file a sworn affidavit with the court as to service of process. Often the process server is a deputy sheriff or a professional process server with an established reputation. The judge believed and ruled that the service was sufficient under the law of the relevant jurisdiction. If the Defendant wants to appeal the ruling by the Trial Court Judge or by, if in federal court, the Magistrate Judge,then the Defendant may do so.[/quote]

I'm exclusively a litigator. I've never done transactional or advisory work in my life.

The client should not be paying for an obvious error. If OP is misstating the facts, that's one thing. But accepting what OP is describing as true, they shouldn't pay.

As an aside, federal court isn't notice pleading anymore? See Twiqbal.

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