|
Practice/Industry Group Overview
Professional Liability
Sands Anderson Marks & Miller has a reputation for unsurpassed excellence in defending designing professionals, lawyers and health care providers in civil litigation. We regularly represent their interests and those of their liability insurers. Our practice also extends to the defense of other professionals.
Whether your claim is simple or complex, our attorneys have extensive background and first-hand experience to review and handle the legal issue involved. We welcome inquiries and would be pleased to describe cases or provide references.
Defense of Claims Against Lawyers
Sands Anderson Marks & Miller has defended claims against lawyers and provided coverage analysis for lawyers' professional liability policies for decades. Since the mid-1980s, claims against lawyers have increased to such frequency and magnitude that the defense of lawyers in civil litigation constitutes a significant part of the practice of our firm's Business & Professional Liability Litigation Team. Whether through alternative dispute resolution or in federal or state court, our legal malpractice defense team stands ready to defend claims against lawyers throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia.
For example:
- Success. Despite the inability to use depositions and the Virginia Supreme Court's admonition to trial judges "not to take the case from the jury," over sixty percent of the legal malpractice cases assigned to us over the past five years were resolved in favor of Sands Anderson's clients on successful pre-trial motions. Of those cases that were appealed, the dismissals were upheld in every instance.
- Leadership. Through both law review articles and actual trial practice, Sands Anderson's attorneys actively developed the "economic loss rule" by which claims against attorneys must be brought in contract. The difference? Elimination of specious tort claims and requests for ever increasing punitive damage awards.
- Experience. The lawyers handling insurance coverage issues and defense claims have broad experience. A former President of the Virginia Bar Association, Douglas P. Rucker, Jr. has been defending lawyers for close to twenty years. Our attorneys routinely speak and write on topics concerning the handling of legal malpractice claims, legal ethics, lawyer discipline and insurance coverage issues. Jeffrey H. Geiger recently completed a chapter on professional liability insurance issues in Virginia and has written articles in state journals and the Defense Research Institute's For the Defense.
At Sands Anderson, our knowledge and understanding of the law, experience in defending claims against lawyers, demonstrated skill, commitment to excellence, case management and teamwork result in prompt settlement of liability cases, aggressive litigation of disputed matters and creative solutions to complex problems.
|
|
Services Available
We have successfully defended, in both state and federal courts, malpractice claims against:
Accountants
Lawyers;
Design Professionals:
architects
engineers
designers/builders
construction managers
surveyors
Corporate Directors & Officers
Insurance Agents & Brokers (including title insurance and surety agents)
Security Dealers and Brokers
House & Termite Inspection Companies
Real Estate Appraisers
and Title Insurers
|