Client selection is a fine art, and one in which every attorney must apprentice.  Select the right client – with a good cause of action and of a sane temperament – and all may go well.  Select the wrong client, and a world of abuse and possibly legal malpractice litigation may follow.

Breytman v Schechter …

Billing disputes between attorneys and clients fuel the legal malpractice cycle.  Attorney seeks to enforce a bill, client responds with a legal malpractice claim, and the litigation clock starts.  Each side seeks and looks for shortcuts, or checkmates.  One checkmate, which may cut off a legal malpractice action at the beginning is the principal of…

Magistrate Judge James C. Francis writes in  Brooks Banker,  v.Esperanza Health Systems, Ltd.,  05 Civ. 4115 (DAB) (JCF):

"Brooks Banker, an attorney, brings this action against the defendants, his former clients, for unpaid fees. Mr. Banker now moves pursuant to Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for summary judgment on…

Clients often believe that their attorney was "bought off" and sometimes stretch the facts to fit a conspiracy theory.  Most of the time there is simply no institutional way that "buying off" could even have happened.  Sometimes we are non-plussed at the actions of attorneys.  We wonder, in this case, why the attorney didn’t tell…

The Redskins!  6 Flags!  Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft !  Legal malpractice cases do not get much higher visibility than this case. Nate Raymond of the  The New York Law Journal reports that  "Redskins owner Daniel Snyder has sued Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft for $13 million over advice it gave on an investment bank’s fee during a…

Real Estate commerce is a big time sport in New York, and in Manhattan might be considered a lifestyle unto itself.  The buying and selling of cooperative and condominium apartments goes on in an endless swirl, good or bad economic times notwithstanding.

One element of the purchase is an educated or studied prediction of future costs. …

Plaintiff is a corporation,and it files a Chapter 11 petition.  It then brings a traditional legal malpractice action in state court.  Plaintiff commences the action against Defendant DLA Piper LLP and then itself removes the case to US District Court.  The matter then is transferred to Bankruptcy Court.  How does this play out?  Why does plaintiff…

There are a large number of cases in which plaintiff loses the capacity to sue a prior attorney in legal malpractice because in the interim, plaintiff has filed for bankruptcy.  Any claim, even inchoate, that a petitioner in bankruptcy has at the time of filing a Chapter 7, becomes part of the bankrupt’s estate and hence…