What is lawyers professional liability insurance?

Lawyers professional liability insurance is one of the most important coverages you can obtain as part of legal professional insurance coverage. Also referred to as legal malpractice insurance, it is a lawyer-specific form of errors and omissions liability insurance (E&O). This coverage may help protect you if a client files a malpractice claim against you. Whether it’s over missed deadlines, bad advice, conflicts of interest, or misinterpretations of the law, these suits can be brought against you for any alleged breach of ethical conduct. Unfortunately, it’s also common for clients to file them after a legal result that didn’t go in their favor. An important thing to note, however, is that it only covers your firm and attorneys acting in a legal capacity.

Who needs lawyers professional liability insurance?

Every lawyer needs lawyers professional liability insurance as part of their legal professional insurance coverage, regardless of the size of your practice or what type of law you practice. However, there are some factors that can put you at greater risk for malpractice suits. For instance, if you’re a large law firm that handles numerous clients, you’re at a higher risk of being sued based on your client volume alone. When it comes to the type of law you practice, those lawyers dealing with personal injury, trusts, loan modifications, and intellectual property tend to be at higher risk due to the personal nature of their cases. Clients may also have impractical expectations of payouts and legal results, causing disagreements.

Get protection for your important files and documents.

We’ve all seen the movies and TV shows that show a lawyer’s office filled with expensive law book collections and rooms dedicated to file storage. But what we don’t see is what happens when, for instance, a pipe bursts and ruins all of those files. Having coverage in place as part of your legal professional insurance policy is important. Valuable papers and records insurance may provide coverage in the event that your files and documents are damaged in a covered loss. This could help offset the costs of replacing them. If you’ve gone paperless and all your files are stored digitally, computers and media insurance works in a similar fashion. This may cover the costs associated with damaged hardware, data loss, and even damage caused by viruses and malware.

Law is a competitive field. Make sure you’re covered.

If you’re a solo practitioner, you probably don’t have to worry about this one. However, firms that employ attorneys and staff could benefit from employment practice liability insurance, or EPLI. You know as well as anyone how competitive law is, especially when there are things like promotions and partnerships at stake. EPLI is an important part of your legal professional insurance plan if you have employees of any kind. This coverage helps protect you from lawsuits that result from accusations of wrongful termination, discrimination, harassment, and failure to promote, to name a few.