Legal Malpractice insurance companies have two big exclusions.  One is late notice of a claim and the other is acts outside the policy coverage.  Late notice is a constant danger to the insured.  Carriers take the position that as soon as the attorney knows there has been a mistake he is obligated to tell the…

Sometimes a case reads like a movie script or a Grisham novel.  People v Wlasiuk ; 2011 NY Slip Op 09544 ; Decided on December 29, 2011 ; Appellate Division, Third Department  reads like one. In reading the case a thought flitted across our mind…could reversible error intentionlly be built in to a case?

 
"Defendant was convicted in…

Architectural malpractice follows the same rules as legal malpractice.  Duplicitive pleadings are not permitted, and will be dismissed.  As we discussed yesterday in Beck v Studio Kenji, Ltd.
2011 NY Slip Op 33470(U); December 21, 2011; Sup Ct, NY County; Docket Number: 108995/09
Judge: Louis B. York one might plead 10 claims, only to have…

Just as in Legal malpractice, so professional malpractice has its pleading rules.  In Beck v. Studio Kenji;  2011 NY Slip Op 33470(U) ; December 21, 2011; Sup Ct, NY County; Docket Number: 108995/09 ;Judge: Louis B. York we see the Court reducing the variety of claims to a contract and a negligence claim. …

We’d like to take this chance to thank our readers for this year and to wish a very good year to all.  If you just can’t get enough legal malpractice, take a look at our article in the New York Law Journal from this week.  The Nuts and Bolts of Legal Malpractice.  See you soon.

Continuing the trend towards a combination of bankruptcy and legal malpractice, we note that bankruptcy follows, and rarely precedes legal malpractice situations, hence, we expect a swell of the intersection following the financial down-trends of the past year. Here, Tabner v Drake
2009 NY Slip Op 10006; ; Appellate Division, Third Department is an example…

Attorney fees and legal malpractice should have nothing to do with each other. However, the general rule is that no legal fees may be awarded in the face of legal malpractice and its corollary is that if legal fees are awarded by a court or tribunal, then there could have been no legal malpractice, whether…

"The defendants Alisa Schiff and Schiff & Skurnik, PLLC (hereinafter together the Schiff defendants), who served as the plaintiff’s attorney with respect to the drafting, and the execution by the plaintiff, of a contract to sell her home (hereinafter the contract of sale), and the defendant Michael Gross, who served as the plaintiff’s attorney for…