Washington, DC-Today, HALT, a group dedicated to protecting the rights of victimized legal consumers, vigorously opposed efforts by California attorneys to restrict the time period during which clients and their beneficiaries can file legal malpractice lawsuits against estate planning lawyers.

"Trying to shield malpractice by adopting special rules limiting the liability of negligent or incompetent lawyers is simply outrageous," stated HALT Executive Director James C. Turner. "This ill-conceived proposal would cut off meaningful accountability for estate attorneys and should be rejected by responsible members of the bar."

Responding to a request from the California Law Revision Commission, which reviews the state's law and recommends reform legislation, HALT sharply criticized the proposal brought by estate planning attorneys to radically change the law. HALT presented the Commission with compelling information that reveals the recklessness of the estate planners' self-interested position that a special exception to the statute of limitations on legal malpractice should be carved out for estate planning malpractice.

Under California's current statute of limitations, a plaintiff can file a lawsuit against a lawyer once the plaintiff has suffered some legal injury. In the context of estate planning, injury occurs when a client dies and her estate plan fails to distribute assets according to her intentions because an attorney incorrectly drafted the plan. At that point, the heirs have either four years to sue the lawyer or one year from the date on which they discover the negligence, whichever occurs first.

Estate planning attorneys claim that the current statute exposes them to malpractice liability for too many years and are pushing the Commission to recommend that the statute of limitations applicable to all other forms of legal malpractice in California not apply to them. Instead, they insist on a statute of repose, which would mean that the time period in which a plaintiff could bring a legal malpractice case would begin on the date that the estate plan is drafted, rather than the date on which the plaintiff becomes injured.

In written comments to the Commission, HALT explained that the estate planners' proposal would cause many - and perhaps most - clients and beneficiaries to go uncompensated for serious harm caused by careless estate planning attorneys. HALT also pointed to the needlessness of this draconian measure and the lack of state bar alternatives for victims time-barred from bringing a legal malpractice action.

Were California to adopt the estate planners' proposal, the state would make a sweeping departure not only from its own current statute, but also from the laws of the vast majority of other states, which make no exceptions for estate planning malpractice. The new exception would also run contrary to the California statute of limitations for medical malpractice, which does not require plaintiffs to file suits until they have been diagnosed with an injury or illness.

"Estate planning lawyers in California seem to believe that the law shouldn't apply to them," stated HALT Associate Counsel Suzanne M. Mishkin. "In the end, it is California's most vulnerable consumers - the elderly who must create estate plans and their grieving survivors - who will be the real losers if this radical proposal is adopted."

Founded in 1978, HALT-An Organization of Americans for Legal Reform is a non-partisan, non-profit public interest organization. HALT pursues an aggressive education and advocacy program that challenges the legal establishment to improve access and accountability and reduce costs in the civil justice system.

		To read HALT’s Comments to the CLRC, click here.