Catherine has been a paralegal for many years and has worked in several family practice law offices. She is currently working for an attorney who recently graduated from law school and clearly seems to be in over his head. Adam, the novice attorney, is relying on Catherine's personal representation of her skills and training, and has asked her to prepare the financial information form on their
client, the defendant spouse. If Catherine makes an error that throws the calculations off, and a malpractice suit is initiated, who will be liable?
What will be an ideal response?
We'd want to start with the question, "What kind of error?" Catherine must handle this assignment with the utmost care and professionalism. Failure to do so could mislead her attorney about the client's overall financial picture, resulting in poor strategic decisions. Her supervising attorney is ultimately responsible for the negligent actions of the law office staff. This attorney, as well as the entire firm, would suffer the consequences. If Catherine's attorney instructed her in a clear and understandable manner to perform standard procedures and she did so in a slipshod manner, and the attorney relied on her work, Catherine might be admonished, or, depending on the severity of the repercussions, possibly fired. On the other hand, if Catherine's attorney's assigned work beyond her area of knowledge, training, and experience, and he did not review her work before it was either sent out or relied upon, Catherine should not be found responsible. The young attorney would have committed malpractice and that would be handled by his firm. Catherine should not be held responsible if she completed the assigned task to the best of her ability and training, and had made the assigning attorney aware of what the scope of that ability and training was.
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