Emerging Legal Technologies and Malpractice

New technologies have evolved the way in which legal practices serve client needs. Some features and functions of legal practice management software include: case management, time tracking, document assembly, contract management, calendaring and docketing, and time and billing.

Not only is the purpose of such software, as discussed above, to assist law firms with everyday practice needs, but many seek to reduce the possibilities of engaging in legal malpractice.

Essentially, it can be agreed that regardless of a lawyer’s competency to handle a legal matter, the possibility of a malpractice claims become increasingly more possible as the matter becomes more complex. Some of the major areas in which malpractice claims tend to follow, involve, but are not limited to, the following: deadlines, failure to settle, poor management of expectations/poor communication, lack of knowledge or preparation, and conflicts of interest.

According to one report on legal malpractice, depending on which malpractice carrier supplied the information, the highest figures reported 12 out of every 100 attorneys being targeted by malpractice suits.^[1] Figures from the same report, found the median figures being between $10,000 and $30,000 for total malpractice damages, in which a claimant was successful in recuperating. Furthermore, about 9.4 to 12 percent of malpractice damages exceeded $100,000.

  

1 This particular report stated, the “[Lawyers Mutual Insurance Company of Kentucky] and [Wisconsin Lawyers Mutual Insurance Company], report frequency of claims per 100 lawyers insured... WILMIC shows rates ranging from about 3.75 to 4.75 100 lawyers while for LMICK the corresponding rates range from 2.71 to 3.79 claims for 100 lawyers... The [Oregon State Bar Professional Liability Fund]... claim rate was about 12 per 100 insured.“ Reports for the Attorneys’ Liability Assurance Society are much lower because it reports claims per 1,000 lawyers and figures 6.5 and 8.5 per 1,000 lawyers since about 2000. Herbert M. Kritzer & Neil Vidmar, When the Lawyer Screws Up: A portrait of Legal Malpractice Claims and their Resolution (2015), available at 
http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6182&context=faculty_scholarship 

THE RION CORP STANDARD:

RION Corp. has developed a cutting edge conflicts software application that is accessible in the Cloud. RION provides a secure, audit friendly, intuitive software program that is easy to use, highly accessible and customizable, and provides value through time and cost savings.

We promise that with our software, law firms are able to engage in the representation of clients knowing they are not violating the professional rules of responsibility.

MALPRACTICE VIOLATIONS BY TYPE

Type of Error	Percentage	U.S. Ranking
Legal Competency	11.3%	1
Planning Error	8.9%	2
Failure to Investigate	8.8%	3
Failure to File Documents	8.6%	4
Fail to Calendar	6.7%	5
Fail to know Deadlines	6.6%	6
Procrastination	5.9%	7
Fail to Obtain Consent	5.4%	8
Confilct of Interest	5.3%	9
Fraud	5.0%	10

* These are the top 10 violations reported by the American Bar Association. The complete chart listing all violations can be found at http://www.americanbar.org/publications/law_practice_home/law_practice_archive/lpm_magazine_webonly_webonly07101.html.

“Conflict of interest claims were down slightly to just 5 percent of all claims.  Computerized conflict checks, combined with standardized conflict resolution procedures, resulted in some improvements in this area.” 

* Randy Evans and Shari Klevens, How High Is Your Legal Malpractice Risk?, The Recorder, available at http://www.therecorder.com/id=12 02740408791/How-High-Is- Y our- Legal-Malpractice- Risk?mcode=0&curindex=0&curpage =2.

JOIN US TODAY!!!!!!

With our legal practice software we can lower the possibility of embarrassing, time-consuming, and potentially expensive risks associated with the failure to complete a comprehensive conflict check. With our highly efficient system we can lower the risk of an ethical violation for the failure to exhaustively complete a conflict check analysis. RION Corp. can offer affordable prices that will depend on the size of the firm. We also offer assistance in helping your firm successfully integrate our cutting edge software. 

Eric Fortineaux, Esq.
eric@rioncorp.com

Have you heard?

We recently read in a legal ethics article that conflict of interest claims were down slightly to just 5 percent of all malpractice claims because computerized conflict checks, combined with standardized conflict resolution procedures, resulted in some improvements in this area.

View the full article here:

http://www.therecorder.com/id=1202740408791/How-High-Is-Your-Legal-Malpractice-Risk?cmp=share_email

Please contact us with questions, and be sure to ask for a demo!

Thank you,
RION Corp.

Re-Cap of Evaluating Conflicts Software

We will be adding this as a resource to our website in the future, but for now here's a re-cap of all our considerations for evaluating Conflicts Software:

1.     Procedure & Technology Survey

a.     Look at the conflicts procedure from start to finish with a question in the back of your head: "Is this the best use of our resources?"

b.     Determine which format of conflicts software is right for your firm:

                                               i.     Legal Practice Management

                                              ii.     Stand Alone

                                            iii.     Spreadsheet

                                            iv.     Word Processing

c.      Create a list of questions for your software vendors:

                                               i.     What type of platform is needed?

                                              ii.     Tell me about upgrades:

1.     Frequency?

2.     Required?

3.     Additional Cost?

2.     Inputs & Outputs

a.     Consider what type and where information is coming from as it goes into your conflicts system.

b.     Consider what type and where information is going to as it leaves your conflicts system.

c.      Consider WHO is on the giving and receiving ends of your conflicts system, and what preferences they may have.

d.     Scanning questions:

                                               i.     Pleadings naming multiple opposing counsel & firm titles into the database?

                                              ii.     Able to scan (and store) Conflicts of Interest documents:

1.     Waiver Letters

2.     Engagement Letters

3.     Declined Representation Letters

e.     Questions about Reports:

                                               i.     What varieties of reports are available?

                                              ii.     Can they be customized?

1.     Self customized?

2.     Required additional consulting?

3.     Competency Requirements

a.     What level of competency is required?

                                               i.     Will we need to understand programming or anything technical?

b.     In what timeframe can we expect to be trained and ready to work?

                                               i.     Learning curve after training?

c.      How frequently will we require education?

                                               i.     Required or available upgrade training?

d.     Are there seminars?

e.     Is the education virtual, or is classroom attendance required?

                                               i.     Do we need to budget for travel arrangements?

f.      CLE credits available for attending training?

                                               i.     If yes – this increases the value of the training.

4.     Integration Questions

a.     How does it interact with our inputs/outputs (if looking at a stand-alone product).

b.     Does it integrate with research engine databases and 3^rd party sources that the firm uses?

                                               i.     D&B

                                              ii.     Westlaw

                                            iii.     LexisNexis

                                            iv.     Capital IQ

                                              v.     Bureau van Dijk

c.      Does it integrate with with OFAC?

                                               i.     US Treasury Department Office of Foreign Asset Control

d.     Does it provide global conversion of existing data?

e.     How long will it take to convert our data?

5.     Intake Forms & Conflicts-Centric needs

a.     Is your intake form online or does it need to be fed manually?

b.     Can we revise our own intake forms?

                                               i.     If not, will there be consulting fees to make revisions?

c.      Are ethics walls stored?

d.     Are Conflict of Interest Waiver Letters stored?

e.     Do you have a thesaurus feature?

f.      Can we add aliases?

                                               i.     How many? (optimal answer: unlimited)

g.     Do you have soundex or phonetic searches?

h.     Can we manually select/deselect content before publishing the report?

Again - this list was pulled from Sandra Roberts' book: "Creating Conflicts of Interest Procedures for Protecting You and Your Firm from Malpractice" - with a few additions of our own. If you're interested we found our copy on Amazon.

Cori Blackburn

cori.blackburn@rioncorp.com
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