Landau Injury Law

Sometimes lawyers take on cases that they are not equipped, staffed or experienced to take.  We represent a cyclist who was struck by a car.  He originally retained a Loudoun County lawyer for his personal injury case.  That lawyer, David Young of the Leesburg law firm Ault & Young, was given records, bills, exhibits and other evidence in order to submit the claim and settle the crash injury claim with the defendant driver’s car insurance company.  However, as we see all too often, the Leesburg lawyer did not have the ability to properly bring the case forward; he and his staff did not return the injured cyclist’s telephone calls, and the two year time limit for such a personal injury case in Virginia was soon to run.

The cyclist called our Herndon Virginia law firm, and we tried to call, e-mail, write and fax this lawyer and law firm.  As we tell all similar callers, we told the injured victim we could not represent him while already had counsel for the case.  Yet with the time limit (“statute of limitations”) running and no word or proof of any work or investment by the so-called Loudoun County personal injury lawyer, the cyclist fired his original counsel and cyclist lawyer Doug Landau stepped in, filed the lawsuit to save the case from being dismissed, and eventually settled with the insurance company.  However, because of the Leesburg injury lawyer’s failure to act in a timely fashion, the costs to the case were unnecessarily increased, records had to be re-requested and the injured victim was forced to wait a lot longer for a conclusion, losing the time value of the money and enduring needless emotional distress.

In a very rare move, the ABRAMS LANDAU law firm is now pursuing a claim on behalf of the cyclist against the former lawyer.  It turns out the former lawyer had lost his license to practice law.  However, he had not notified his client of that critical fact.  The former lawyer also failed to turn over the file right away.  In fact, he has never turned it over or returned to the client his original file, papers and exhibits.  This is a very serious error, as the Ethics Rules mandate that a lawyer turn over the client when a change in counsel is requested and that the former lawyer may not do anything that may prejudice or delay the client’s case.  The lawyer in question never had the courage or good sense to just return Doug Landau’s calls when the cyclist first started calling.  Mr. Young is now hiding behind bankruptcy protection to stall the cyclist’s claims against the lawyer and his law firm’s professional liability insurance.  Mr. Young’s partner Mr. Spencer Ault has also lost his license to practice law in Virginia and the law firm no longer exists, though both men have been seen in and around Leesburg.  If you are aware of other litigation involving these former Leesburg lawyers or have information that can help this injured victim, please e-mail us or call us at once at 703-796-9555.  Lawyers who take cases they cannot handle, especially personal injury cases, often cause double harm needlessly.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 27th, 2012 at 9:01 am and is filed under Auto Accidents, Bicycle Accidents, Injured Athletes, Negligence Cases, Sports Accidents. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.