Office of the General Counsel

• Publication year: 2022
• Pages: 0042

Office of the General Counsel No. Vol. 27, No. 5 Pg. 42 Georgia Bar Journal April, 2022

It's the Little Things ...

BY PAULA FREDERICK

Things are looking up. Business is booming, the kids are back in school and the pandemic is no longer casting its pall every minute of every day. And yet, in the last month:

• You forgot to hit "send" on a lengthy email update to a client. You found it in your "drafts" folder when she called to complain;

• Your profane rant about opposing counsel almost got you sanctioned by the judge. You hit "stop video" instead of "mute" before a video break;

• You missed a status conference. Somehow you put it in the electronic calendar for 2023 instead of 2022 ...

You're exhausted. But don't worry, so is everyone else!

Pandemic burnout is real. Inattention to detail and errors caused by multitasking are common causes of malpractice claims and ethics complaints. Since malpractice claims can take years to develop, we have not yet seen the impact of our more than two years of practice during a pandemic.

But the experts are worried. According to business insurance and risk management company Ames & Gough, "the full effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on global economies is still largely unknown, [but] there is growing concern among LPL underwriters that we may well see an increase in malpractice claims ... and that these claims may be slow to develop."^[1]

Clients are feeling it too. The Ames & Gough survey cites social isolation and economic uncertainty that it believes creates high-stress situations that lead clients to bring legal malpractice claims against their lawyers?even when unwarranted.

So what's a lawyer to do? In the last few issues of this...