Accounting Malpractice
The Poppe Law Firm® will evaluate and handle your accounting malpractice case in Kentucky or Indiana.
When you encounter accounting malpractice, it is always a loss in time, personal wellness and money. These circumstances can significantly damage your financial situation. Unfortunately, at times, we run into hardships, both financial and emotional, caused by someone else’s negligence. We will try to resolve your case with the best possible outcome, as we do for all of our clients.
We employ local, state and federal accounting laws when handling your case along with our experience and knowledge. We also consult the accountancy ethics rules. The cases we handle include accounting, auditing, and business valuation malpractice. We evaluate compliance with professional standards such as generally accepted accounting principles and other established professional standards.
It is essential that in an accounting malpractice lawsuit, the plaintiff prove the defendant’s negligence by proving a violation of a reasonable standard of care. This typically means that if the level of care in the same field of accounting is taken as a standard of care, the defendant must have acted below the standard. For example, if a personal tax accountant fails to timely file a client’s tax return (without getting an extension) he violated the standard of care through his carelessness. However, only a handful of accounting malpractice cases are that simple.
In practice, accounting malpractice cases are more complex and involve proving the existence of a duty or contract providing for the necessity of a duty.
The complexity of these cases can not be overestimated. Unfortunately, there is no entity that is not prone to malpractice. There is malpractice in every professional industry, including medicine, law and insurance. Every member or employee of a firm, from the CEO down to the staff, has a risk of committing malpractice. Accounting is on the list of fields with high malpractice rates. If you believe your accountant’s efforts fell below the standard of care, and you were financially injured as a result, please call Hans.
Accounting Malpractice FAQ
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Can My Accountant Refuse to Give Me My File?
Maybe. If you have paid the CPA in full for the services rendered, he is required to release the records requested within a reasonable period of time. The CPA can charge you a fee for copies or staff time for making copies of these records. Limiting your request to copies which are actually needed can save you time and money. Also, it will enable the CPA to make a more timely response to your concerns. See our Library Article on Getting Your File From Your Accountant.
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Are all lawyers the same?
Unfortunately, not every lawyer can handle every kind of case, even if they say they can on a television commercial. The fact of the matter is, you should choose your lawyer only after you are convinced they will not pass your case off to another attorney if the case doesn’t settle quickly. You should also be certain that the lawyer knows enough about your type of case. For example, my firm does not handle divorces or wills or speeding tickets (we don’t know how, but we do know several lawyers who do and we can give you their names). We don’t handle these cases because we choose to stay abreast of the law in other areas and know we can do a much better job on case with which we are familar, that is why we limit our practice and the number of cases we will handle. If you are not sure whether your case fits in one of our practice areas, please call us. We’ll be happy to tell you and, if we don’t handle your type of case, we’ll be happy to recommend someone if we can.