William J. Gallagher
Timothy F. Rayne

MacElree Harvey's Litigation Department is equipped to assist clients in prosecuting and defending claims for professional malpractice.

Whether claims against a doctor, dentist, accountant, architect, engineer, psychiatrist, psychologist or any other professional, such malpractice claims are all worthy of careful consideration and evaluation.

Each profession has certain standards of conduct and when the actions of a particular professional fall below that standard and cause damages, grounds for a lawsuit may exist. In order to prove a case of professional malpractice, the following elements must be present:

• the professional must have been employed to assist the plaintiff
• the professional must have failed to live up to the standard of care - that is, failed to exercise the ordinary skill and knowledge possessed by other professionals; and
• damages must have been caused to the plaintiff.

Ordinarily, the plaintiff must present testimony of an expert in the field of the professional, such as another doctor, in the case of medical malpractice, to testify as to what the appropriate standard of care was and how the defendant failed to live up to the standard thereby causing damages.

Read articles on Professional Malpractice and other areas of the law by MacElree Harvey attorneys.