The importance of knowing the rules relative to legal malpractice in Georgia is akin to a parent wanting to know the rules of baseball or soccer. Youth sports teams tend to be community oriented, volunteer run, and require a fair balance of team members, equipment, coaches, capabilities, and time. Part of the unwritten contract of volunteer coaching, and of youth sports, is that the altruistic effort from the coach needs to be met with equal altruistic effort from the players and parents. A failing on either side can derail the efforts of the entire system. So in the event of a collective legal misstep, who is there to address the problem? That is where this area of law comes in for the common citizen or community member.

What is legal malpractice? It is the “misconduct of an attorney… that, restrictively stated, is… a failure by an attorney to conduct themselves by the standards of the profession that directly harms the client.” With regard to the interface between the laws and the sports environment, who is to address the issue of legal malpractice? The citizens should look to the courts to ascertain the extent of the attorney’s liability and the remedy for the perceived harm. This effort is of utmost importance in the state of Georgia where the statute of limitations on this is only four years. Within this period of limitations, the alleged harm must be discovered and then acted upon, which is why it is so important to understand what legal malpractice is, its elements, and how they apply to one’s situation.

There are three elements to a legal malpractice case. A lawsuit requires that the plaintiff, in this case, the citizen or youth soccer program, demonstrate that the attorney failed to meet the standard of conduct required to properly protect the client’s interests. There must be proof that the damage and injury to the plaintiff in terms of competence and safety was a direct result of the attorney’s wrongdoing. In this case, the damage was a result of either (1) failing to realize who the legal client was and failing to act in their best interests, or (2) the attorney’s ignorant or wrongful decision making on behalf of the community, youth soccer program, and players. Establishing these three legal elements is imperative when recovering damages, which can include remediation costs, education, and emotional compensation for those affected by the alleged legal malpractice.

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