The statute of limitations is an extraordinarily powerful concept. After a specific period of time, it’s just too late to sue, even though the defendant was totally and wholly wrong. It’s just too late! Its a completely arbitrary period of time, too.
So, courts have ameliorated the hardship from time to time. One way of…
Client hires attorney and, let’s say, the relationship sours. Client moves on to attorney 2 and there is a bad outcome to the litigation. Who is responsible (if anyone)? Is it attorney 1 or attorney 2 or both?
Tooma v Grossbarth 2014 NY Slip Op 07347 Decided on October 29, 2014 Appellate Division, Second Department…
Many lawyers are disciplined, and some are disbarred over the conversion of their ward’s funds. Guardianships are necessary for those who cannot manage their own finances, and for the most part are beneficial to the wards. Sometimes, however, the existence of money just sitting there can be too much of a temptation. So it was…
Deep v Boies 2014 NY Slip Op 07215 Decided on October 23, 2014 Appellate Division, Third Department is the story of a plaintiff who lost an early start-up web site/application called "Aimster." His claim is that it was taken from him by his attorney, the very powerful David Boies.
When Plaintiff sued Boies and the…
In a case with complex legal issues, are attorneys given an extended range in which to make "decisions" rather than "departures"? It seems so. What might be a "mistake" in another setting is a "judgment call" here.
M & R Ginsburg, LLC v Segel, Goldman, Mazzotta & Siegel, P.C. 2014 NY Slip Op 07227 …
It’s THREE years, and not a day more. In legal malpractice, no matter whether your claim is based on negligence or breach of contract CPLR 214(6) states that one has 3 years in which to bring the action.
Tsafatinos v Law Off. of Sanford F. Young, P.C. 2014 NY Slip Op 07145 Decided on…
Legal malpractice cases come up in all kinds of settings. It may be the individual personal injury plaintiff whose case was not started on time; it may be the car accident in which the doctor’s reports failed to give the necessary descriptions of the injury and the case was dismissed, and sometimes it can be…
Up to today, the rule in legal malpractice litigation has been that Plaintiff was not required to appeal from a decision in order to sue his attorney. That all changed today with the Court of Appeals decision in Grace v Law 2014 NY Slip Op 07089 Decided on October 21, 2014 Court of Appeals…
Attorneys represent individual client for a personal injury case. The attorneys also represent two companies that are run by the individual. The PI case settles and the attorneys want to apply the settlement monies against the bills for the company’s commercial litigation. It all goes wrong thereafter.
Salazar v Sacco & Fillas, LLP 2014 NY Slip…
Courts do not apply legal malpractice law in a vacuum. Far more than in other areas of the law, Courts engage in finding ways to explain the attorney’s conduct, or in finding explanations. Fielding v Kupferman 2013 NY Slip Op 02008 [104 AD3d 580] March 26, 2013 Appellate Division, First Department is no exception. …
