• Every lawyer has a legal duty to use due diligence in the quest for justice.Justice image by MVit from Fotolia.com
  
  Every lawyer has a legal duty to handle each case with due diligence, a standard of care for professional matters. The term is used in other arenas such as finance as well. For a lawyer, the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct and individualized state ethics rules can be used as guides for due diligence requirements and other duties of the profession. As part of becoming a member of a state bar, each attorney must pass a state bar exam as well as the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam.
  
  

Adequate Investigation

• Lawyers must often perform extensive research and investigation.magnifying glass on dotted background image by .shock from Fotolia.com
  
  Failure to adequately investigate a case or transaction can be one situation where a lawyer did not perform due diligence. When corporations hire lawyers to manage or oversee corporate decisions such as mergers, the lawyer must do extensive research on the other companies involved to make sure that there are no surprises after the deal goes through. The lawyer should make sure that all of the obligations of a company are understood and that financial data is carefully evaluated. It is vital for a lawyer handling such a transaction to do so systematically to ensure that all relevant information is attained.
  
  

Assessment of Liabilities

• A lawyer has not performed due diligence if all liabilities in a case or transaction have not been taken into consideration in decision making. For example, if an attorney fails to discover environmental liabilities in a property transaction, it could result in a malpractice suit if this mistake affects the value of the property or a business's ability to use the property for an intended use. Researching other aspects of the property such as easements and deeds is also important in real estate transactions. Liabilities should also be assessed in other types of legal cases.
  
  

Making Informed Decisions

• Failure to gain all pertinent and available information can be construed as a lack of due diligence.data image by dinostock from Fotolia.com
  
  In order to make informed legal decisions, a lawyer and a client must have all of the relevant and important information about the case or transaction at hand. A lawyer should, as part of his services, make sure that either the client provides this information or make sure that the information is gained by some other means. Failure to gather all pertinent data in a legal situation may rise to malpractice based on the lawyer's failure to conduct due diligence.