recourse for detrimental reliance?

[angiec]

if an attorney gives his client explicit information in contract, that turns out to be inaccurate, and money was lost based on this information (detrimental reliance), would this constitute actual legal malpractice?

 

[army judge]

Your understanding of detrimental reliance isn't complete.
Detrimental reliance is a creature of contract law and involves consideration, promise, promissory estoppel, and one's reliance on a promise to perform or deliver that caused one to suffer damages.

Attorneys can and do commit malpractice from time to time. However, no attorney promises any client a specific outcome.

Your attorney might have committed malpractice. But, that isn't the same as detrimental reliance.


Try reading this website to gain a deeper understanding of the term, detrimental reliance.


http://definitions.uslegal.com/d/detrimental-reliance/

 

[angiec]

you may be right about my limited understanding of the term. i am not in the legal profession. here is my scenario, in short: my husband and i got married last year and subsequently filed for him to legally adopt my daughter, whose biologal father passed away several years ago. our attorney assured us that his fees would be tax deductible under the adoption tax credit. based on this information, we borrowed several thousand dollars from a home equity line of credit to pay for the legal fees. we are now filing our 2010 taxes and have learned that step-parent adoptions do not qualify for the adoption tax credit. i am frustrated and feel mislead, because if we had been given accurate information upfront, we would have taken an alternate route. had we been given information about the tax credit from someone that we know, i would have done further research to ensure the information was accurate, but we trusted our lawyer to give us credible information.

 

[army judge]

From what you describe, you could have a malpractice claim. You might be wise to speak to a couple of attorneys in your area about your concerns.

I'm not saying you have an actionable suit. I am saying that it is worth talking to an attorney about your concerns.

Good luck.

 

[Proserpina]

we would have taken an alternate route.

In addition to what AJ has said already...I'm curious as to exactly which alternate route you would have taken.

It may matter in terms of recourse.

 

[angiec]

we may have waited to file when we had the cash funds available or obtained the funds from other sources than our home equity, as opposed to borrowing them with expectations of rapid repayment.