Anthony Lin in the New York Law Journal reports that Supreme Court, New York has dismissed a legal malpractice suit based upon the Sophisticated Plaintiff doctrine. Where the Plaintiff is as well versed in some speciality as is the attorney, then the attorney will not be held to deviate from good practice when making decisions based upon that knowledge.

Here is a partial quote from the article.

“A Manhattan judge has thrown out a legal malpractice suit by a group of brokers who claimed Kronish Lieb Weiner & Hellman provided them with faulty advice leading to a violation of a rule of the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) and subsequent penalties and fines.

Even if the law firm had negligently advised the plaintiffs, Supreme Court Justice Jane Solomon said, the latter were “sophisticated professionals” already aware of the NASD rule in question. Therefore, the firm’s actions were not the proximate cause of the plaintiffs’ injuries, she wrote in Smookler v. Kronish Lieb, 604165/02″