Is the client satisfied with the settlement is different from whether the client is “satisfied with the representation” which, in the past few years has taken on a totemic power to kill legal malpractice cases.  Clients, when/if asked at the settlement allocution whether they are satisfied with their attorney’s representation and required to answer.  If…

The attorney client privilege is sacrosanct, no?  Well, not really.  Heth v Satterlee Stephens Burke & Burke LLP  2019 NY Slip Op 30555(U)  March 5, 2019  Supreme Court, New York County  Docket Number: 650379/2015  Judge: Andrew Borrok demonstrates what happens when the client possibly  discusses how attorney 1 is handling the case with attorney 2.…

Akin to a pro-se situation, when law firms defend themselves in a legal malpractice setting they run the risk of attorney disqualification on the attorney-witness rule.

Quadrozzi v Castro  2019 NY Slip Op 30550(U)  March 5, 2019  Supreme Court, New York  County Docket Number: 151675/2018 Judge: Frank P. Nervo is a good example.

“Plaintiffs seek…

The experts were hired, and now plaintiff (whose attorney hired them) says that they were inexpert.  Marks Paneth LLP v Economic Alchemy LLC     2019 NY Slip Op 30532(U)  February 26, 2019  Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 60427/2017 Judge: Lucy Billings is determined on sufficiency of pleading grounds.  The fraud claim fails.

“Plaintiff Marks…

Departure is the first question in legal malpractice; it is the one that almost everyone gets right.  What is often shocking to the client is that judges (and then juries) scrutinize the remaining three elements (proximate cause, “but for” causation and ascertainable damages) in reaching a decision.

Lisi v Lowenstein Sandler LLP  2019 NY Slip…

There is great dispute over the elements of Judiciary Law § 487.  Is it attempted deceit or successful deceit?  Does it require egregious conduct, or chronic conduct or chronic and extreme conduct or a pattern of delinquency?

Schwartzman v Pliskin, Rubano, Baum & Vitulli  2019 NY Slip Op 30419(U)  January 14, 2019  Supreme Court, Queens…

Candero v Del Virginia  2019 NY Slip Op 30436(U)  February 26, 2019  Supreme Court, New York County  Docket Number: 151983/2018  Judge: Barbara Jaffe discusses the various relationships and potential legal malpractice in a case which traveled from New York to Florida, and in which the lawfirms kept changing shape.

“Relying on the advice of third-party…

Architectural malpractice would normally be governed by CPLR 214(6) and have a three year statute of limitations.  In Architect v Kodsi, 2019 NY Slip Op 01398  Decided on February 27, 2019  Appellate Division, Second Department the contract called for a 1 year contractual statute of limitations.  However, as we see below, that 1 year period…