Your Client’s Worst Enemy Is Their Own Attorney

OHIO’S FOUR-YEAR STATUTE OF REPOSE, THE CLAIMS IT KILLS IN SILENCE, AND THE ONES HIDING IN YOUR OWN FILES

Sometime this year, a lawyer is going to call me in a panic. He did everything he was trained to do: he knew the one-year malpractice limitations period, the discovery rule, the termination rule. What he missed was a second clock, Ohio’s four-year statute of repose. None of it matters once four years pass from the underlying act. The claim is dead, and the client never knew it was alive. I have handled roughly fifty of these over thirteen years, almost always for the plaintiff. Other lawyers now call me about this statute; once, so did disciplinary counsel. I am writing to keep you off that panicked call, on either end of it.