Here is a very interesting Legal Malpractice [LM] after a Medical Malpractice{MM} case which comments on the judgment rule in legal malpractice cases, as well as a unique New Jersey presumption. At the MM trial, plaintiff was unable to provide an expert; their expert had died, and no one else found a deviation. the LM plaintiffs relied on a presumption that the use of an expert in an underlying case would have increased the success rate; if this is true, then the burden shifts to legal malpractice defendant to show it’s not true.
In dismissing the LM case, the Supreme Court of New Jersey determined that it was plaintiff’s burden to provide a medical expert’s affidavit in the LM case to show that there was a deviation. They still had none, and lost. Details.