Legal Malpractice Experts Discuss Conflict of Interest in Malpractice Case

Case Overview

This case involves an insurer that was sued by a law firm for their alleged failure to pay legal fees, which then counter-sued alleging legal malpractice on the part of the law firm. The insurance group was responsible for providing medical malpractice insurance to a hospital network, and the events of the incident in question were initiated in response to a lawsuit against one of the network’s physicians. In that suit, another doctor was also sued, however she was not covered by the same insurance group. Nevertheless, both physicians were represented by the same law firm in the malpractice suit, in spite of the fact that they had conflicting interests. There was apparently minimal effort on the part of the law firm to compartmentalize the work done for each physician, and the nature of the conflict was not made clear to the insurance provider. Before the trial began, one of the physicians reached a settlement, and due to the existing conflict between the two physicians the law firm was unable to mount a successful defense of the second physician at trial. As a result, the insurance firm was hit with a significant verdict.