All too frequently a person is injured at work, retains an attorney, and a problem arises several years later.  Either there is a “consent” problem with the WC carrier, or there is a total failure to file a WC claim.  Sometimes, as in Encalada v McCarthy, Chachanover & Rosado, LLP  2018 NY Slip Op 02434  …

In Gad v Sherman  2018 NY Slip Op 02316  Decided on April 4, 2018 Appellate Division, Second Department we see the Second Department pass up an invitation to endorse a First Department concept that expressing “satisfaction” with the attorney’s work at an allocution settling a matrimonial action precludes a later legal malpractice case against the…

Moran Enters., Inc. v Hurst  2018 NY Slip Op 02321  Decided on April 4, 2018  Appellate Division, Second Department illustrates why secondary issues may lead to dismissal.  Here, the failure to list a claim on a bankruptcy schedule along with the failure to pay franchise taxes doomed a variety of legal malpractice claims.

“The plaintiff…

Sometimes the First Department writes a long opinion, sometimes only a paragraph.  Here, in Heth v Satterlee Stephens Burke & Burke LLP  2018 NY Slip Op 02307  Decided on April 3, 2018
Appellate Division, First Department the issues were distilled, the opinion was short.

“Plaintiff alleges that defendants, representing him pursuant to an engagement letter…

Sadly, there are a substantial number of legal malpractice cases brought by pro-se litigants.  While legal malpractice cases suffer a disproportionately high rate of dismissal  in all settings, in the pro-se area the dismissal rates are very high.  Knobel v Wei Group, LLP  2018 NY Slip Op 02292
Decided on April 3, 2018 Appellate Division,…

Thomas v Weitzman  2018 NY Slip Op 30528(U)  March 26, 2018  Supreme Court, New York County  Docket Number: 151876/2016  Judge: Kathryn E. Freed is the story of a plaintiff injured at at NYCHA premises.  Taken to the hospital for surgery, she claims medical malpractice.  These few facts immediately summon forth the questions of suing a…

Legal malpractice is always an exercise in hindsight, since it is always a comparison of the actual outcome of attorney representation v. the hypothetical better outcome had the attorney not departed from good practice.  Nonetheless, Lisi v Lowenstein Sandler LLP  2017 NY Slip Op 32411(U)  November 16, 2017  Supreme Court, New York County  Docket Number:…

There are a whole group of social policy roadblocks to legal malpractice litigation.  The additional element of “but for” causation is one; the requirement of privity is another; the exemption for strategic decisions is a third.  A very black and white limitation is that of legal malpractice by a criminal defense lawyer.  Put in short,…