CLE speakers constantly tell the attendant attorneys that fee disputes against their client will trigger a legal malpractice claim.  Insurers ask whether attorneys sue for or have sued for a fee in the recent past.  They too must be worrying about a retaliatory legal malpractice suit.  It seems that Wagner Davis P.C. v Gargano  2014 NY Slip Op 02247  Decided on April 1, 2014  Appellate Division, First Department is the poster child for this advice.  Put another way, client did not want to pay the $ 56,000+ fee, which was too large for arbitration.  Legal malpractice, unsuccessfully, followed.

"In this action for unpaid legal fees, defendants asserted a counterclaim for legal malpractice alleging that they would have prevailed on a motion for a preliminary injunction in the underlying action commenced by defendants against their neighbors over a retaining wall between their properties, if it had been made earlier by plaintiff. However, defendants failed to establish that they would have been successful on the motion absent counsel’s delay (see Warshaw Burstein Cohen Schlesinger & Kuh, LLP v Longmire, 106 AD3d 536, 536 [1st Dept 2013], lv dismissed 21 NY3d 1059 [2013]). In any event, plaintiff’s delay while a new expert prepared a report on the challenged retaining wall, was a reasonable strategic decision that cannot form the basis of a malpractice claim (Morrison Cohen Singer & Weinstein v Zuker, 203 AD2d 119, 119 [1st Dept 1994]).

Defendants’ contention that the claims for fees should not have been granted due to plaintiff’s failure to comply with the rules on fee arbitration is unavailing. The complaint expressly states that the amount of damages sought is $56,943.25, which is beyond the maximum amount covered by the Fee Dispute Resolution Program (see 22 NYCRR 137.1[b][2]; Kerner & Kerner v Dunham, 46 AD3d 372 [1st Dept 2007]). Although defendants’ arguments regarding [*2]the amount of the fees were deferred to an evidentiary hearing, the motion court properly declined to consider the un-notarized, out of state report of defendants’ expert (see CPLR 2309; CPLR 2106).