It wasn’t the pleading of the claim, and it wasn’t merely that the claim was settled.  The Appellate Division, 4th Department found that Counter-claimant wife could not get past a speculative description of damages in Chamberlain, D’Amanda, Oppenheimer & Greenfield, LLP v Wilson  2016 NY Slip Op 00841  Decided on February 5, 2016  Appellate Division,…

Whether in legal malpractice, accounting malpractice or legal malpractice about an accounting malpractice claim, In Pari Delicto is a powerful defense widely wielded by defendants.  They say, in essence, we sued a wrongdoer, but failed.  Now you (the wrongdoer’s employer) sue us.  Courts should not intervene between two wrongdoers, and that’s what you are asking…

All too often, the Appellate Division affirms Supreme Court’s dismissal of a claim with a blanket statement of black-letter law.  These dismissals, understandable under the unrelenting numbers of cases before the Second Department (for example) fail to inform litigants of what is a proper quanta of factual allegations and those which will fail the test.  …

Plaintiff detects what it considers to be deceitful statements made during litigation.  The statements are brought to the attention of the court which declines to sanction the attorney.  May Plaintiff then sue for JL 487?  Gillen v McCarron  2015 NY Slip Op 01781 [126 AD3d 670]  March 4, 2015
Appellate Division, Second Department suggests the…

We are reviewing all of the JL 487 cases from 2015.  Today, we look at Barouh v Law Offs. of Jason L. Abelove  2015 NY Slip Op 06769 [131 AD3d 988]   September 16, 2015  Appellate Division, Second Department in which plaintiff hired attorney to file a shareholders’ derivative action against BEA.  That action settled.  BEA…

Yesterday the Facebook case surfaced, and sadly, there is little news to report today in the Legal Malpractice world.  Take a look at the Prof. Anita Bernstein article in the NYLJ called “Legal Malpractice Liability for Criminal Defense: Rare Yet Possible”

Have a happy New Year’s celebration.  See you next week.

Thanks for taking a look at the blog over 2015.  We’re taking a couple of days off.  We’ll be back on December 28.  See you then.

The most basic question in any professional negligence setting is what are the base elements of a professional negligence claim?  Before one considers statutes of limitation, the amounts of damage, and many other collateral issues, the initial question to be decided is the standard of practice and how/whether the defendant departed from that standard.

Board …