One would expect a lot of probate work in Florida, as well as a more moderate amount of medical malpractice litigation there.  As surely as night follows day, there will be mistakes, miscommunications and legal malpractice claims where there is legal work.  Probate work involves transfers of money, and one might expect litigation over mistakes in money transfers.

With that, the insurance industry follows the trends.  Here is a blog blurb from the Florida Probate blog which discusses an industry report.

"Against this backdrop, a recently published article by LawPRO, a Canadian professional liability (malpractice) insurance provider, should be of interest. Wills & estates law claims on the rise by Deborah Petch and Dan Pinnington provides claims statistics and risk management advice specifically focused on the probate/estate planning practice area. Although written for a Canadian audience, the advice seems equally applicable in Florida.

I was especially interested to see that "lawyer/client communication failures" was far and away the single most common cause of malpractice claims. This finding is in line with the med-mal statistics and "don’t-be-a-jerk" risk management advice given to doctors I previously wrote about [click here]. Another way of stating the don’t-be-a-jerk rule is: respectfully listen to and communicate with your clients. "