Procedure is king in legal malpractice and elsewhere.  How does a good case end up in Civil Court.  Sometimes an inexperienced practitioner, or a pro-se litigant who is trying to save $ 175 might start the case in Civil Court rather than Supreme, and sometimes a judge will transfer the case pursuant to CPLR 325d…

Jail over Christmas…is there anything worse?  Well, yes of course there is, yet being jailed for the holidays is pretty bad. That’s what happened to plaintiff here.  Was it her fault or her attorneys?

in Minkow v Sanders ;2011 NY Slip Op 02120 ; Decided on March 24, 2011 ; Appellate Division, First Department  we…

Doctors and lawyers, legal and medical malpractice.  The two fields of law have many similarities, and in this case they are all mixed up.  Doctor hires attorney to handle a purchase of a Co-op for use as a medical office.  It turns out that there is no certificate of occupancy for use as a medical…

We discussed Hinshaw & Culbertson, LLP v e-Smart Tech., Inc.; 2011 NY Slip Op 30651(U);
March 18, 2011; Sup Ct, New York County; Docket Number: 113108/09; Judge: Judith J. Gische on the question of dropping a client just before a deadline. That shortcoming was held not to be legal malpractice.  What about unauthorized divulgance of…

CLE lecturers almost always warn the listener not to sue for fees. They tell attorneys at the lectures that there will be an inevitable legal malpractice counterclaim.  In the case of sole practitioners or small firms, a comparison of their insurance deductible with the fee claim should be made, because they may have to pay the…

The Elite Models litigation, in which a class action set of models challenged the industry practices on expenses and allocation of fees to the models ended with a group of US District Court cases, a multi-million dollar settlement and a raft of legal malpractice cases which followed.  This case, Pillard v Goodman ;2011 NY Slip…

Attorneys move around, and law firms morph.  What happens when one attorney is sued for legal malpractice which is said to have taken place at two law firms?  One answer is that both firms may be sued in the main action if plaintiff chooses, another choice is the third party action.  Here, in Tanger v …

The Defendant in this case was a well known (and ground-breaking) legal malpractice attorney who has been in a swirl of late career litigation.  There have been RICO cases, there have been intra-office blow-ups, and herein this case he was sued for legal malpractice.  However, here, all went wrong for plaintiff.

In Callaghan v Curtis …