Rep. Randal Mangham’s bad day in court

State Rep. Randal Mangham, D-DeKalb, an attorney, was found liable by a DeKalb jury yesterday for a stunning $625,000 in damages for legal malpractice, according to Jim Walls at Atlanta Unfiltered.

According to some attorneys I spoke to, legal malpractice cases are somewhat rare because the burden of proof for the plaintiff is fairly high. It’s not like medical malpractice, where folks have been known to sue their doctors because they didn’t like the outcome of a surgical procedure.

With legal malpractice, not only must you show that your attorney screwed up your case through some egregious, avoidable mistake — such as failing to file essential documents — but you’ve also got to convince a jury that if your case had been handled properly, you would’ve won. That’s where the damages come in, as compensation for the money the  attorney prevented his client from collecting.