Earlier this week, the Texas task force assigned to investigate whether attorneys should be required to disclose whether they carry legal malpractice insurance voted against requiring disclosure.  However, the issue is not dead.  The Texas Supreme Court or even the Texas legislature could still require disclosure.

My thoughts on the proposal are in a post below.

Today, a Supreme Court of Texas task force is set to vote on a proposal that would require Texas lawyers to disclose to potential clients whether the lawyers carry legal malpractice insurance.  Earlier this week, California took another step to adopting a similar requirement.

As a legal malpractice attorney, I think the proposal is a great idea.  Potential clients have the right to know whether the attorneys they are hiring have the financial ability to make them whole should the attorney make a mistake.  As attorneys, we encourage the public to make sure that their tree trimmers, contractors, mechanics, etc are bonded and insured before they're hired.  Certainly, clients of attorneys would be interested in the same information.

I also think that the duty to disclose the lack of malpractice insurance may exist due to the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.  A business (including lawyers) violates the DTPA when the business fails to disclose information concerning services which was known at the time of the transaction if the failure to disclose was intended to induce the consumer into a transaction into which the consumer would not have entered had the informaiton been disclosed.  Because insurance is important, I think there's a potential duty to disclose the lack of insurance under this statute.

However, it is not a slam dunk.  There are several respected commentators that are against these types of rules.  For more information on those positions, you can check out the following:

• ABA Net 2003 pro/con article
• Susan Cartier Liebel
• Ed Poll

The Poppe Law Firm (who I thought were Louisville personal injury attorneys) have another great legal malpractice post.  This time, the post describes an Augusta criminal law firm that has been sued for legal malpractice 23 times.  I won't detail the post, but it's worth a read. 

On a similar topic, we have previously posted on Texas legal malpractice claims in the criminal context.

Louisville lawyer Hans Poppe reports today on a Louisville lawyer that has been accused of stealing from his clients.  Most notably, a $1 million estate seems to have disappeared.  Unfortunately, Mr. Poppe appears to think the case may be an example of what we consider the #1 rule of legal malpractice cases:  the attorney's culpability is inversely related to his or her ability to pay a judgment.  There are exceptions to this, of course, but as long as bar associations don't require attorneys to either (1) carry malpractice insurance or (2) disclose to clients that they don't carry insurance, then unwitting consumers will always be faced with the prospect that they'll be stuck when they are the victims of legal malpractice.

I know some lawyers disagree, but I strongly believe that lawyers have an obligation to their clients to carry malpractice insurance in case the lawyer makes an error.