In Florida, the legal malpractice statute of limitations is two years, but the clock usually does not start on the day your attorney made the mistake. It starts when you discover the malpractice or when a reasonably attentive person in your position should have discovered it. Figuring out that start date is almost always the hard part.
The Two-Year Deadline
Florida Statute 95.11 sets a two-year limitations period for professional malpractice claims, including claims against attorneys.1Florida Senate. Florida Code 95.11 – Limitations Other Than for the Recovery of Real Property Miss it, and the court will almost certainly dismiss the case no matter how clear the attorney’s error was.
Under Florida’s general accrual rule, a cause of action accrues when “the last element constituting the cause of action occurs.”2Online Sunshine. Florida Code 95.031 – Computation of Time For malpractice, that last element is the harm you suffered. Because harm from a lawyer’s error often doesn’t surface right away, the discovery rule ends up controlling when the two years actually begin.
When Does the Clock Start?
The two-year period begins when you actually discover the malpractice, or when you reasonably should have discovered it. The point is simple fairness: your deadline shouldn’t expire before you had any reason to suspect something went wrong. How that plays out depends on whether the error happened in a lawsuit or in a transaction.
Errors Made During a Lawsuit
When the alleged malpractice occurred during litigation, the Florida Supreme Court’s decision in Silvestrone v. Edell controls. The two-year clock does not start until the judgment in the underlying case becomes final. That means either the time to appeal expires, or, if an appeal is filed, the appeal is decided and any rehearing motions are resolved.3Justia. Silvestrone v Edell
The reasoning is practical. Until the underlying case ends, you often can’t know whether the lawyer’s mistake actually cost you anything. An error at trial might be fixed on appeal. A case might settle in a way that erases the harm. Only after the process plays out does the damage become fixed.
Errors Made in a Transaction
Transactional malpractice has no bright-line trigger. Discovery might come when a second attorney reviews a flawed contract, when a title defect surfaces during a sale, or when an agency rejects a filing your lawyer prepared. The clock starts whenever the problem becomes apparent, or whenever reasonable diligence would have revealed it.
The “should have discovered” piece has teeth. If a business partner points out a critical missing clause in a contract your attorney drafted, a court will likely treat that conversation as the start date, not the moment months later when you finally consulted another lawyer. The standard is a reasonably attentive person in your position, not someone who waits to be certain.
While Your Lawyer Still Represents You
Florida courts recognize a continuing representation doctrine. As long as the attorney who committed the malpractice continues to represent you in the same matter, the two-year clock is tolled. Clients shouldn’t be forced to sue a lawyer in the middle of an ongoing engagement just to preserve their rights, and the attorney often has a chance to fix the problem.
This matters most in long engagements where an early error only shows its consequences years later. Once the representation on that matter ends, the clock begins to run.
When the Clock Pauses
Tolling is a separate concept from the discovery rule. Discovery decides when the clock starts; tolling stops a clock already running. Florida Statute 95.051 lists the specific grounds that pause the limitations period, and the statute is exclusive. Reasons not spelled out in it do not toll the clock.4Online Sunshine. Florida Code 95.051 – When Limitations Tolled
Fraudulent Concealment
If your attorney committed malpractice and then actively hid it from you, the statute of limitations may be tolled until the concealment comes to light. The textbook example is a lawyer who misses a filing deadline and then fabricates documents to make it look like the filing was timely.
This exception requires affirmative deception. Simply failing to mention an error is generally not enough. There is a real difference between a lawyer who never volunteers that something went wrong and one who creates a fake confirmation to cover it up. Courts want evidence of deliberate steps taken to keep you from finding out.
Absence, False Names, and Hidden Whereabouts
Florida law also pauses the clock when the person you need to sue:
- Leaves Florida, until they return or service of process can be accomplished.
- Uses a name unknown to you, preventing service.
- Hides within the state so that process cannot be served.
These grounds do not apply if service of process or service by publication can be accomplished some other way sufficient to give the court jurisdiction.4Online Sunshine. Florida Code 95.051 – When Limitations Tolled They rarely help in legal malpractice cases, since attorneys are licensed professionals whose addresses are a matter of public record through the Florida Bar.
Incapacity
If you were adjudicated incapacitated before the cause of action accrued, the limitations period is tolled. Even then, the claim must still be brought within seven years of the act that gave rise to it.4Online Sunshine. Florida Code 95.051 – When Limitations Tolled
A Florida Bar Complaint Does Not Extend the Deadline
A grievance with the Florida Bar and a civil malpractice lawsuit are two different things. The Bar process is disciplinary and can produce sanctions against the attorney, but it does not pay you anything. A malpractice lawsuit is a civil action for financial compensation.
The deadlines are also different. The Florida Bar’s rules give you six years to file a grievance, measured from discovery. That is much longer than the two-year window for a civil claim.1Florida Senate. Florida Code 95.11 – Limitations Other Than for the Recovery of Real Property Filing a Bar complaint does not extend, toll, or otherwise affect the two-year malpractice deadline. If you spend three years working through the grievance process before deciding to sue, the malpractice claim is almost certainly time-barred.
If both routes are on the table, protect the civil deadline first. The Bar grievance can still be filed later within its own six-year window.
Why You Should Not Wait Until the Last Minute
Even once you know the deadline, treating it as a target is risky. To win a Florida legal malpractice claim, you have to prove not only that the lawyer breached a duty of care but also that the breach caused real financial harm, which usually means proving you would have gotten a better result if the lawyer had done the job properly. That is a substantial case to build. A new attorney needs time to review the file, evaluate the underlying matter, and draft a complaint. Walking into a lawyer’s office with a few weeks left on the clock sharply narrows your options, and in close cases on the discovery date, filing earlier is the safer choice.