Plaintiffs attempted to bring a legal malpractice action after three years had elapsed, and relied upon pleadings which cited “fraud.”  The Appellate Division reminded all that there is no real circumvention of the statute of limitations, and that the fraud has to be extrinsic to the attorney-client relationship.

Hsu v Liu & Shields LLP…

Client owns a gas station.  A  dump truck and a fuel truck collide and explode.  The station is closed for 5 years while remediation of the fuel spill goes on.  They sue the trucks, and lose.  Was this legal malpractice?

This case appears to be the first application of Grace v. Law in which the…

In a short and cryptic decision, the First Department affirmed dismissal of a legal malpractice case. Evart v Shapiro, Beilly & Aronowitz, LLP  2015 NY Slip Op 02847  Decided on April 2, 2015  Appellate Division, First Department consists of just two sentences.  Really only one counts.

“The motion court properly dismissed plaintiff’s legal malpractice claims,…

OK, so you want to buy a business.  The best advice is to get an experienced attorney, no?  What happens when the attorney fails to follow the directions of Tax Law § 1141(c)?  That section of the tax law is the bulk sales law, and it says that the purchaser must contact the Tax Department…

Plaintiff was a graduate student at Cornell and had some problems.  The Appellate Division wrote: “Petitioner, a graduate student at respondent, exchanged a series of e-mails with senior professor Davydd Greenwood until she suggested that they have a sexual affair, causing him to request that she no longer contact him. Petitioner nevertheless continued to send…

This trial of a legal malpractice case ended up in Civil Court. It was probably there on a claim for legal fees with a legal malpractice counterclaim.   It arose out of US Customs duty litigation, which sometimes takes place in the US District Courts and often wends its way to the US Supreme Court.  Here,…

Candela Entertainment, Inc. v Davis & Gilbert, LLP   2015 NY Slip Op 02712   Decided on March 31, 2015 Appellate Division, First Department is another example of the Appellate Division applying a laser-sharp eye to the “but for” portion of a case.  Here the question, on a motion to dismiss, was not whether the complaint stated…

Here is a story which has happened all too often in the past 20 years.

“The plaintiff and the defendant, an attorney licensed in New York, met in or about 2001, when the plaintiff sought the defendant’s legal representation. The parties established a business relationship, which later evolved into a friendship. In 2007, upon the…