Kalispell, MontanaKalispell Legal Malpractice
Kalispell Legal Malpractice Lawyers: Missed Deadlines, Real Estate and Estate Planning Errors in Flathead County
Boland Aarab PLLP.
If a lawyer’s mistake cost you a case, a property deal, an inheritance or money in the Flathead Valley, you may have a legal malpractice claim. You must prove the lawyer failed to use reasonable care and skill, and that the failure caused a real loss, usually with expert testimony. You generally have 3 years from discovering the error, and never more than 10.
Believe a lawyer’s mistake cost you? Contact Boland Aarab PLLP for a free consultation at (406) 315-3737.
What kinds of legal malpractice claims arise in the Flathead Valley?
The work lawyers do in Flathead County reflects the valley’s economy, and so do the mistakes.
- Real estate and land transactions. Flathead County has grown to about 115,400 residents (Census Bureau estimate, July 1, 2025), and land, lake frontage and development parcels change hands constantly. Common problems include missed easement or access issues, boundary and survey problems, and water rights left out of a sale. So are buy-sell terms that fail to protect the client’s stated goals, and closings where the documents don’t match the deal.
- Family land and lake property. Many Flathead families hold a cabin, a lake lot or ranch ground across generations. Estate plans, trusts and deeds that fail to carry out the owner’s wishes may not surface until years later, when the owner has died and the property is in dispute.
- Litigation errors. Missed statutes of limitations, missed government-claim notices, missed expert deadlines and missed appeal deadlines can end a case in the Eleventh Judicial District Court before it begins. A missed 180-day dram shop notice or a missed tort-claim presentation are examples.
- Business and construction matters. Growth brings contracts, lien claims, partnership disputes and construction disputes. The deadlines in those areas can be short.
- Settlement problems. A lawyer who failed to communicate an offer, settled without authority, or let a client sign a release that gave up other claims.
A disappointing result is not malpractice by itself. The question is whether the lawyer fell below the standard of care, and whether that cost you something you can measure.
What happens when you bring a malpractice claim in Kalispell?
Get your file. Ask the lawyer or firm in writing for your complete client file: correspondence, drafts, pleadings, notes and billing records. Keep copies of everything you already have.
Check the public record. For a litigation error, the Flathead County Clerk of District Court, in Suite 300 of the Justice Center at 920 South Main Street, keeps the court file in the underlying case. For a deed or easement problem, recorded documents are kept by the Flathead County Clerk & Recorder at the historic courthouse, 800 South Main Street. We pull both early.
Protect the underlying matter first. If the original case or deal can still be saved, by an appeal, a motion or a corrective deed, that comes first.
An independent review. A malpractice case needs a lawyer with no part in what happened, and usually an expert, often an experienced Montana lawyer in the same field. That lawyer explains what a careful attorney would have done. Some clients prefer a firm from outside their own legal community for that review. We are based in Great Falls and do not practice day to day in the Flathead courts.
Court. A malpractice suit against a Kalispell lawyer or firm is generally filed in the Eleventh Judicial District Court at the Flathead County Justice Center, 920 South Main Street, Kalispell, and a Flathead County jury decides the facts. If the lawyer is licensed in Montana but lives in another state, the case may be in the U.S. District Court’s Missoula Division.
Discipline is separate. A complaint to Montana’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel addresses a lawyer’s professional discipline. It does not award you damages.
Montana law that applies
In brief; see our Montana legal malpractice lawyer page for the full treatment.
- Four elements. You must prove duty, breach, injury and proximate cause (Labair v. Carey, 2012 MT 312, ¶ 20). An attorney-client relationship establishes the duty.
- Expert testimony. With limited exceptions, “only expert testimony can establish the standard of care in a legal malpractice case” (Babcock Place, 2003 MT 111, ¶ 21).
- The case within a case. For an error in a lawsuit, you usually must show you would have done better in the underlying case but for the lawyer’s negligence (Lorash v. Epstein, 236 Mont. 21 (1989)). In a transaction, the question is what a careful lawyer would have built into the documents, and what you lost without it.
- Deadline. 3 years from when you discovered, or reasonably should have discovered, the error. In no case more than 10 years after it (§ 27-2-206, MCA). The 10-year limit matters for wills, trusts and deeds, where errors surface late.
Why hire a Great Falls firm for a Kalispell case?
Suing a lawyer means trying two cases at once: the malpractice case and the case or deal underneath it. We are based in Great Falls, handle legal malpractice cases across Montana, and travel to Kalispell for depositions, hearings and trial. We do not have a Kalispell office.
The Boland Aarab Way
- We build cases for trial. Our attorneys have spent more than 4,000 hours in the courtroom and have tried more than a dozen jury trials.
- We know appellate court. Malpractice cases often turn on legal rulings. The Boland Aarab appellate record reaches back to 1977.
- We protect verdicts. The Montana Supreme Court reinstated a $168,500 jury verdict for our client (Voegel v. Salsbery, 2023 MT 137).
- We know federal court. More than 40 cases in the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana over nine years.
We also handle appeals in Kalispell and construction defect cases in Kalispell. See our Kalispell personal injury page.
Contact Boland Aarab PLLP for a free consultation at (406) 315-3737.
Frequently Asked Questions
My lawyer missed the deadline on my Flathead County injury case. Do I have a claim? Possibly. You would need to prove the lawyer fell below the standard of care and that your injury case would have succeeded, and what it was worth.
The lawyer who handled my lake-property purchase missed an access problem. Is that malpractice? It can be, if a careful lawyer would have caught or addressed it and you lost value as a result. We review the file, the recorded documents and what you asked the lawyer to protect.
My parent’s trust didn’t transfer the family cabin the way it was supposed to. How long do we have? Generally 3 years from when the error was discovered or reasonably should have been, but no more than 10 years from the error itself. Have it reviewed promptly.
Should I file a bar complaint instead? A complaint to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel is about discipline and doesn’t compensate you. It is separate from a malpractice claim.
Where would a malpractice case against a Kalispell lawyer be heard? Usually in the Eleventh Judicial District Court at the Flathead County Justice Center in Kalispell.
Our attorneys: Caitlin Boland Aarab · Samir F. Aarab
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.
