Assume the following:  Plaintiff has a medical malpractice case and retains Defendant law firm to handle it.  Defendant law firm works on the case for a while, and as the statute of limitations nears, tells the client that it’s not going to go forward, and that the client should seek other counsel.  Client, who does not have other attorneys ready to go, is unable to bring the action within the statute of limitations.  Is the first attorney liable in legal malpractice, or is the client (in effect) responsible because no new attorney was found. 

in Alden v Brindisi, Murad, Brindisi, Pearlman, Julian & Pertz ("the People’s Lawyer")  ; 2012 NY Slip Op 00580 ; Decided on January 31, 2012 ; Appellate Division, Fourth Department  we see one answer.  
 "Supreme Court properly granted defendant’s motion to dismiss the complaint pursuant to CPLR 3211 (a) (7) in this legal malpractice action. Accepting as true the facts set forth in the complaint and according plaintiff the benefit of all favorable inferences arising therefrom, as we must in the context of the instant motion (see generally Leon v Martinez, 84 NY2d 83, 87-88), we conclude that the complaint fails to plead a cognizable theory for legal malpractice because it does not permit the inference that any alleged negligence by defendant was a proximate cause of plaintiff’s damages (see Pyne v Block & Assoc., 305 AD2d 213). The proximate cause of any damages sustained by plaintiff was not the alleged legal malpractice of defendant but, rather, the proximate cause of plaintiff’s damages was either "the intervening and superseding failure" of plaintiff to retain successor counsel in a timely manner or the failure of successor counsel to commence a timely medical malpractice action on plaintiff’s behalf (Pyne, 305 AD2d 213). Indeed, we note that the record establishes that defendant afforded plaintiff and her successor counsel "sufficient time and opportunity to adequately protect plaintiff’s rights" (Somma v Dansker & Aspromonte Assoc., 44 AD3d 376, 377; see Maksimiak v Schwartzapfel Novick Truhowsky Marcus, P.C., 82 AD3d 652; Katz v Herzfeld & Rubin, P.C., 48 AD3d 640, 641; cf. Wilk v Lewis & Lewis, P.C., 75 AD3d 1063, 1066-1067)."