Can lawyers be sued for "malpractice"?

[koltin]

For example, if a lawyer argues in court that his/her client killed someone but it is not because of depraved indifference or because of a malicious premeditated murder but because his/her client ate chocolate which caused a spike in blood sugar and his/her client just suffered medical effects and became behavorially uncontrolable and just grabbed a knife and killed the nearest person to him and the lawyer argues that the client is not a vicious person but a normal human being whom just has a medical condition and must not be punished and won't go on to do the same thing again ; and thus the client is freed because he is found not guilty of a violent, intentional act, and then the client goes on to murder someone else without having had eaten chocolate beforehand. (Let's say that the person he murders is one of the jurors whom decided that the client was innocent). Can the lawyer be sued (let's say by the family of the second murdered person) for having had been wrong and having had been instrumental in freeing a person whom should not have been freed? Is there any legal procedure that would enable or allow a lawsuit against a lawyer for such reasons? Has anything like this, or even as-close-as-possible ever happened? Is a lawyer whom turns out to be wrong about his/her client's propensity to murder, or do harm, or commit a crime again liable for endangering others by overstating his/her client's harmlessness? Could a lawyer have legal action taken against him or her and be taken to court so as to be questioned about whether s/he knew that his/her client was not really harmless? Of course I know that lawyers frequently lie about their client's innocence but you rarely ( probably never) hear about a lawyer being questioned in a court of law about whether he or she actually knew that his or her client was guilty and was only trying to free his her client regardless. I guess the law does not have a process so as to persecute a lawyer for being a part of hiding a crime, not when the lawyer does it in a suit and tie, hiding behind his/her license and by cleverly disguising his/her lies as reasonable doubt in a courtroom.
How about when a lawyer loses a case for his or her client? Can the client sue the lawyer for that?
Does anyone know about this?

[bernd]

Yes.

[matchitisiw]

Absolute not. A lawyer is LEGALLY OBLIGATED to defend his client to the best of his ability, and to make the best arguments that he can to defend them. A defense lawyer's job is to prove that there is reasonable doubt. Even if the person is guilty if the prosecutor can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person is guilty then justice is not served by conviction. If there was not the case then our justice system would be a sham even more than it is. You expect defendants to go to court without people defending them? Lots and lots of innocent people would go to jail. Our legal system is built on erring on the side of not putting innocent people in jail. It sounds like you want to sue a lawyer for doing his legally obligated job. Ridiculous.

[winwood]

Absolute not. A lawyer is LEGALLY OBLIGATED to defend his client to the best of his ability, and to make the best arguments that he can to defend them. A defense lawyer's job is to prove that there is reasonable doubt. Even if the person is guilty if the prosecutor can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person is guilty then justice is not served by conviction. If there was not the case then our justice system would be a sham even more than it is. You expect defendants to go to court without people defending them? Lots and lots of innocent people would go to jail. Our legal system is built on erring on the side of not putting innocent people in jail. It sounds like you want to sue a lawyer for doing his legally obligated job. Ridiculous.

ah