-
- Robert M. Jarvis
-
- Debra Moss Vollweiler
An NSU study of legal malpractice in Florida over a 44-year period (1978 to 2021) shows that insurers paid an average of about $154,000 per claim with the largest payout being $2 million. The total number of lawyers sued was 3,870, with male lawyers sued (3,224) greatly exceeding the number of female lawyers sued (646).
“Florida Legal Malpractice: A Statistical Profile,” by Robert M. Jarvis and Debra Moss Vollweiler – professors at the Shepard Broad College of Law – appeared in the October 2024 issue of the St. Mary’s Journal on Legal Malpractice and Ethics. The professors analyzed 4,533 claims, with 3,178 of them resulting in a payout.
Five Florida counties accounted for the bulk of claims: Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Orange, and Hillsborough. The average claim took 2.9 years to resolve. Legal malpractice insurance typically covered all but a very small percent of the money paid to the claimants.
As far as the disparity between men and women lawyers in malpractice claims, Jarvis and Vollweiler noted that women did not begin attending law school in large numbers until the 1980s.
Using the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation’s (FOIR) database of lawyer professional liability claims, Jarvis and Vollweiler examined claims information submitted by 100 insurance companies pursuant to Florida Statute § 627.912, which requires insurers to report their legal malpractice claims experience to the state. Florida is one of only a handful of states that has such a statute.
Although the FOIR has been collecting information on legal malpractice claims since 1988, to date only one other researcher has used the information in the database. In 1995, Professor Manuel R. Ramos of Tulane University’s law school published an article in the Florida Law Review that looked at six years of data (1988-94).
Jarvis and Vollweiler, building on Ramos’ findings, spent 1,000 hours culling through the FOIR database. Their results showed that the average lawyer sued in Florida for legal malpractice had 21.9 years of experience at the time the claim against them was filed. Claims were split almost evenly between lawyers working as sole practitioners (50.5%) and those working in law firms (49.5%).
In terms of education, lawyers in the study came from nearly every law school in the country. The greatest number of lawyers, however, came from Florida-based law schools, reflecting the fact that Florida-based law schools produce the greatest number of Florida Bar members.
The area of practice most likely to generate a claim was real estate law, followed by personal injury law, probate law, family law, and corporate law. The top five mistakes resulting in a claim were missing a statute of limitations (or other deadline), lack of diligence, negligent drafting, incorrect advice, and conflict of interest.
Although 80.2% of the study’s male lawyers and 85.6% of the study’s female lawyers had only one reported claim, a few lawyers had multiple claims, including two male lawyers who each had seven claims and one female lawyer who had six claims.
Professor Jarvis can be reached at jarvisb@nova.edu or 954-873-9173. He speaks to the media, teaches, and writes about attorney ethics, judicial ethics, and legal malpractice.
Professor Vollweiler can be reached at vollweiler@nova.edu or 954-262-6296. She teaches courses on contracts, corporations, and the Uniform Commercial Code.
###
MEDIA CONTACT
Irvin B. Harrell | Office of Media Relations
Nova Southeastern University
954-262-5355 (office) | 954-945-6471 (cell)
iharrell@nova.edu | www.nova.edu
