Real Estate in New York is always a hot topic.  Prices for apartments can reach $3000 per square foot in certain circumstances, and the value of landmarked real property cannot be overstated.  What happens when a building project goes badly wrong?  Litigation.

143 Bergen St., LLC v Ruderman  2016 NY Slip Op 07936  Decided on…

He was my lawyer, why can’t I sue him?  Privity, or the direct contractual relationship between attorney and client is the bedrock of the legal malpractice system.  For policy reasons, (we think) this requirement is almost never excused.  The policy is most likely that of avoiding a legal malpractice case after each and every litigation.  …

As we have discussed in the recent past, the element “that but for the departure of the attorney there would have been a better economic outcome for plaintiff” is a black hole of such magnitude that a vast portion of dismissed legal malpractice cases disappear there.  Put another way, while it is simple to show…

A commercial transaction (likely the sale of a business) leads to complications and eventually to a legal malpractice case.  What is the status of electronic stored information discovery upstate ?  In this Rochester case we see the parties battling over relatively small amounts of money in allocation of discovery costs.

Wade v McConville  2016 NY…

It is a frequent trope in the legal malpractice world that LM claims are made reflexively in order to avoid payment of attorney fees.  While that might actually happen, our anecdotal examination finds that most legal malpractice claims are well considered, and are generally meritorious. The same is not necessarily true of Judiciary Law 487…

Attorney fee litigation takes up the larger part of all litigation involving attorneys as parties, and it almost always revolves around hourly billing.  There are few cases involving contingent fee cases.  Hourly rate billing principles include “account stated” which posits that regularly tendered invoices for services rendered to the client where the client either signed…

The statute of limitations is a strong and almost impermeable defense…when there is adequate proof that the attorney-client relationship actually ended.  Here, in  Aqua-Trol Corp. v Wilentz, Goldman & Spitzer, P.A.  2016 NY Slip Op 07916  Decided on November 23, 2016  Appellate Division, Second Department the proof was lacking and the case goes on.

“The…

With a throwaway line that plaintiff also brought claims against “the attorneys”, Homapour v Harounian  2016 NY Slip Op 31408(U)  July 21, 2016  Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 653795/2015  Judge: Eileen Bransten goes on to discuss when a receiver should be appointed in a litigation.

“This is an action brought by Mehrnaz Nancy…