This Law.Com article describes a star attorney who is now a defendant in a legal malpractice suit in Washington DC. 

"Renowned Washington, D.C., litigator Michele Roberts has the kind of reputation that makes other attorneys salivate with envy.

"She mesmerized juries," says Wiley Rein partner Barbara Van Gelder, who worked for the U.S. Attorney’s Office when Roberts was arguably one of the best public defenders in D.C. "She was, to me, one of my most feared adversaries."

Still, there is one case that the seemingly infallible Roberts has not been able to win. It began nearly six years ago as a simple matter, one she agreed to handle as a favor to a federal judge. It has since given rise to a $5 million legal malpractice claim filed against her by a former client.

Vaughn Stebbins, whom Roberts represented in a civil case against the District of Columbia and a Metropolitan Police Department officer, claims that the superstar litigator botched his chance to recover damages for injuries he received after being shot nine times by the police officer in 1998. Stebbins accuses Roberts of blowing deadlines and failing to properly serve a key defendant — mishaps that led to the dismissal of his case.

Roberts isn’t the only defendant in the D.C. Superior Court case. Stebbins has also sued solo practitioner Steven Kiersh and Goodwin Procter, the firm that absorbed Shea & Gardner, where Roberts once worked.

In motions for summary judgment filed in June, Roberts and Kiersh argue that it is irrelevant whether their slip-ups led to Stebbin’s case being dismissed, because a reasonable jury would never have sided with him.

Yet that defense has placed the two lawyers in the awkward position of having to tear apart their original case and discount deposition testimony given by the expert witnesses that Kiersh had assembled.

Last month, Stebbins’ lawyers — Richard Swick and David Shapiro of Swick & Shapiro — filed their own motion for partial summary judgment, alleging that Roberts and Kiersh’s negligence was so straightforward that the matter is undisputable.