Mark B. Wilson

Mark B. Wilson is a partner at Klein & Wilson as well as a seasoned trial attorney and negotiator. He has won nearly every case he has tried and arbitrated and is among only 95 California State Bar-certified legal malpractice law specialists. Wilson represents plaintiffs in legal malpractice and billing dispute cases and has tried many mandatory fee arbitrations and legal malpractice trials. He has also settled many of these cases and is regularly hired to testify regarding standard of care issues. Wilson has collected more than $18.5 million in legal malpractice cases and has saved clients millions of dollars in fee disputes.

Wilson tried his first legal malpractice case around 1995 and enjoyed working on it because he was able to help a client who was desperate for help and obtained a great result for her.

“I feel strongly that lawyers should take their fiduciary duties seriously. When lawyers damage their clients, they also harm the profession,” Wilson said. “When the public distrusts the very people who are supposed to protect them, that distrust fosters hopelessness.”

He continued: “I was drawn to legal malpractice cases because they give me an opportunity to restore trust in the profession and the legal system, in addition to getting harmed clients compensation.”

Wilson has worked on several significant cases recently, including one that addressed the issue of whether attorneys have liability exposure to their clients for violating a confidentiality provision in a settlement agreement. He said the arbitrator in the binding arbitration found that the law firm who violated the confidentiality provision was liable for breaching the settlement agreement and ordered the law firm to pay fees and costs.

Wilson has had to overcome several major challenges in his work, including representing lawyers in high-profile cases while protecting and preserving attorney-client and work product-privileged materials. He said he takes great care in framing responses to charges in documents that are publicly available and refrains from responding to press inquiries in a manner that could potentially disclose privileged information.

Wilson believes that there are several trends in the field that need to be addressed, including the need for proper training for new attorneys.

“To become skilled, attorneys need proper training. I am concerned that new attorneys who work at home are not learning the skills needed to become competent, which will lead to more malpractice claims,” Wilson said. “In my opinion, new lawyers should seek employment from law firms that will provide in-person training and collaboration. Otherwise, they may not learn the skills necessary to perform great work for clients.”