Posted by
NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Thursday, December 14, 2006 6:56:13 PM
I have written both on my desire to force the courts to allow lawsuits against opposing attorneys who violate ethics rules and thus damage litigants, and about the parsimonious $5/per attorney/per year that the Colorado Supreme Court doles out to all litigants who have been damaged by their own attorneys.
I have been trying to determine how many states require attorneys to have malpractice insurance. I found the answer this week.
The article is by Meridith Hobbs and is titled: "Legal Malpractice Brings Unique View of Brethern's Vices." and comes from Law.com. It was first published in the Fulton County Daily Report.
Here is the answer:
No state except Oregon requires lawyers to carry malpractice insurance, but Beltran said lawyers should "absolutely" have it. He and the other members of the State Bar's malpractice committee are trying to get the bar to require lawyers to at least alert clients if they carry less than $100,000 in malpractice coverage. "We're trying to do it in steps," he said.
Some practitioners oppose insurance requirements because they think the expense would be prohibitive for lawyers practicing solo or in small shops. Beltran disagrees. He said that for his firm, which has two experienced lawyers and one brand-new one, he pays less than $5,000 a year for $2 million in coverage.
I go back to the Real Estate Commission. No real estate broker in Colorado can activate his licence without errors and omissions insurance.
It is important not to give lawyers a pass on this issue because they can easily put their assets out of reach of litigants, which is another reason that lawyers are so seldom sued. Insurance companies cannot put their assets out of reach.