This report notes that $ 35 million was too little a payout to the overcharged clients of the John M. O’Quinn law firm.

"An arbitration panel has ordered John M. O’Quinn’s firm to pay a little more to a class of 3,450 former breast implant clients who allege O’Quinn’s firm overcharged them for expenses.

In July, a three-member arbitration panel ordered O’Quinn’s firm to pay $35.7 million in damages to the class. But in an order issued on Sept. 11, a three-member arbitration panel ordered the firm to pay a total of $41,465,950. That $41.5 million breaks down to $9,979,364 for breach of contract damages, $2,494,841 for attorney fees on the breach of contract claim, $3,991,745 in interest on the breach of contract claim and $25 million for fee forfeiture.

The panel allocated $500,000 for expenses and $10,241,487 for attorney fees, leaving $30,724,463 to be distributed to class members.

O’Quinn, of the O’Quinn Law Firm in Houston, did not return a telephone call seeking comment. Neither did his attorney, Billy Shepherd, a partner in Cruse, Scott, Henderson & Allen in Houston, who said in an earlier interview that they are researching avenues of appeal.

An attorney for the plaintiffs, Joseph Jamail, a partner in Jamail & Kolius in Houston, says, "It came out pretty much where I thought we were going to, based on the original order." Jamail says the former O’Quinn clients "felt cheated" but are now vindicated.

In their petition in Martha Wood, et al. v. John M. O’Quinn, P.C., the plaintiffs allege O’Quinn’s firm wrongfully deducted "Breast Implant General Expenses" — expenses such as the cost of taking depositions that were relevant to all the suits — and other fees from their settlement checks. O’Quinn denied the allegations. "

Last week we discussed the racketeering lawsuit by Biovail and the Kasnowitz, Benson law firm.

Today, this article from Law.Com relates that Biovail has re-hired the Kasnowitz law firm who has appeared for it in NJ.

"Biovail Corp. has taken a page from the George Steinbrenner/Billy Martin playbook in order to reignite its well-publicized conspiracy suit against short-sellers and analysts. The Canadian drugmaker has rehired its former lead firm in the case — Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman. Biovail fired Kasowitz last March amid legal proceedings surrounding the company’s misuse of court-protected documents.

The suit began in February 2006, when Biovail sued analysts and hedge funds, including SAC Capital and its founder Steven Cohen, in New Jersey state court. Biovail claims that it was the victim of a conspiracy to spread false information about it in an effort to depress its stock and profit. The company’s chairman at the time, Eugene Melnyk, appeared on "60 Minutes" to tout the complaint.

But the company’s suit has been stalled since January, when Manhattan federal district court Judge Richard Owen ruled that Biovail violated a protective order in his courtroom where the company is a defendant in a shareholder class action. Specifically, Owen found that Biovail had used court-protected documents it had subpoenaed from Banc of America to support its allegations in the New Jersey case.

The dispute was embarrassing and costly for both Biovail and its lawyers. It was amidst the hearings that Biovail fired the Kasowitz Benson firm. "

Will digital text and its manipulation become the fodder of legal malpractice cases?  As in each new refinement of media or even printing, attorneys must keep up.  Carbon paper, phtotstats, photocopies, computers, fax, scanning; each has been a refinement of the prior world, and each then sets a high water mark. This article  suggests that digital manipulation of text, and files will eventually become the standard, deviation from which may be malpractice.

We’ve been following this in the Madison Record for a few months.  Now it appears that Lloyds is out, but the remaining insurance companies are still in.

"Lloyd’s Illinois and underwriters at Lloyd’s London have settled a suit the Lakin Law Firm filed against them in a legal malpractice case.

Madison County Circuit Judge Barbara Crowder signed an order Sept. 6, granting a Lakin motion to dismiss Lloyd’s with prejudice.

Affinity Insurance Services and the Norton and Rain Insurance agency (NRI) remain as defendants.

The Lakins sued for coverage of an order from a federal judge in Oklahoma awarding about $4 million to former Lakin client Stephen Williams.

The Lakins obtained a settlement for Williams and structured the payout so he would receive regular payments for many years.

The Lakins entrusted the payout to investor James Gibson, who for years piled up payouts from clients of the Lakins and other firms.

Gibson looted the funds and fled to Belize.

Today he occupies a prison cell.

Last year Williams sued the Lakins in U.S. district court at Tulsa, for recommending Gibson.

The Lakins did not respond, so this year Chief Judge Claire Eagan granted a default"

"Celebrity Photographer" Kenneth Nahum owned two penthouses, and sat on the condo board.  Nevertheless, he and his attorneys failed successfully to purchase the rooftop area in between, and he has now successfully passed a motion to dismiss.

"A Manhattan judge has ruled that celebrity photographer Kenneth Nahoum may proceed with a legal malpractice suit stemming from his attempt to purchase 2,000 square feet of common space in his Soho building for less than $70,000.

Mr. Nahoum, who owns two penthouses at 95 Greene Street, retained real estate lawyer Carolyn L. Weiss and her Scarsdale, N.Y.-based law firm Weiss & Weiss in 2000 to represent him in the purchase of common rooftop space from the building’s board of managers, on which he then sat.

The sale was challenged by a later board, which said Mr. Nahoum had never gotten the required unanimous approval from the building’s unit owners and that the property at issue was larger than originally stated.

Mr. Nahoum sued Ms. Weiss for failing to recognize that his purchase was defective. "

This report of a Texas Case that garnered a $ 71 Million dollar verdict, only to see it overturned on appeal.  Now, the Texas court of last resort has denied review. 

"The Texas Supreme Court handed Houston-based Baker Botts a big victory. On Aug. 31, the Supreme Court denied a petition for review in Kathleen C. Cailloux v. Baker Botts, et al., a ruling that upheld a take-nothing judgment in favor of Baker Botts and Wells Fargo Bank Texas in a big-bucks estate-planning suit.

In 2005, 198th District Judge Karl Emil Prohl of Kerr County ordered Baker Botts and Wells Fargo to pay $71 million in damages to former estate-planning client Kathleen C. Cailloux, a wealthy widow in Kerrville. A jury found Baker Botts breached its fiduciary duty for failing to disclose all important information when doing estate-planning work for Cailloux after the death of her husband, Floyd, in January 1997.

The jury also found Wells Fargo breached its fiduciary duty to Cailloux.

Cailloux alleged in the Sixth Amended Petition that the defendants conspired to convince her, right after her husband’s death, to disclaim her rights to her husband’s estate and transfer more than $60 million to the Floyd A. Cailloux and Kathleen C. Cailloux Foundation — ostensibly to save more than $30 million in taxes — without informing her of other estate-planning options.

In February, a three-justice panel of the 4th Court of Appeals in San Antonio reversed the judgment and rendered a take-nothing judgment in favor of the firm and the bank. In the opinion, Justice Catherine Stone wrote that nothing in the record proved that Baker Botts or Wells Fargo breached a fiduciary duty that caused Cailloux to disclaim her right to the estate of her late husband. "

Legal malpractice litigation is always about compensation.  In addition, sometimes it is also about vindication.  Here in this fascinating story it may well be about jail and disbarment.  Right now, hearings are continuing before Judge Richard Owen in Southern District of New York, and the attorney witnesses are reportedly coming in with their criminal defense attorneys.

Andrew Longstreth of the American Lawyer in Law.Com relates the story of Biovail. 

"Racketeering Lawsuit by Biovail Backfires Against Company and Lawyers
Company’s litigation tactics are in spotlight, as Biovail execs and lawyers from Howrey and Kasowitz Benson feel the heat

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go for Biovail Corp., Canada’s largest publicly traded drugmaker. Biovail was supposed to be the victim, the ill-used dupe of powerful hedge funds, analysts and bankers, whose short-selling scheme to spread false information about the company led to a plunge in its share price in 2003. And Biovail’s lawyers, respected litigators from Howrey and Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman, were supposed to be the ones to help the company prove it.

Mark Wegener, co-chair of Howrey’s global litigation practice, had been hired to defend Biovail in a shareholder class action in federal district court in New York. His job was to shift blame for the company’s disastrous market fall away from Biovail and its executives, including Chairman Eugene Melnyk. The company’s other lead outside counsel, Marc Kasowitz, played offense. After more than a year of investigation — which included shoe-leather sleuthing by his firm’s in-house detective agency — he had filed a 90-page racketeering suit in New Jersey state court. It was a document as detailed as it was audacious, lobbing charges against some of the most powerful financial figures on Wall Street.

"When Adelphia Communications and founding members from the Rigas family became mired in fraud charges and bankruptcy proceedings, a criminal trial and numerous civil cases were quick to follow.

It was a specific malpractice case for professional negligence brought by the cable company against auditing firm Deloitte & Touche that created a years-long battle between the companies and a list of attorneys that read more like the who’s who of Philadelphia legal circles.

Who knew Robert C. Heim, the late Alan J. Davis, Richard Bazelon, Philadelphia’s commerce court program, David Pittinsky, Arlin Adams, Larry McMichael and a couple of New York firms had so much in common?

Adelphia filed a motion Friday to discontinue Adelphia Communications v. Deloitte & Touche due to a $167.5 million settlement agreement reached this summer that attorneys said was one of the largest ever seen in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court.

With the settlement comes an end to a case that began in 2002 and still promises future litigation work for some of the attorneys involved.

Heim, chairman of Dechert’s litigation group, was contacted by Boies Schiller & Flexner in 2002, the firm representing Adelphia in its bankruptcy case, to see if Dechert would sign on as co-counsel in the malpractice case. "  From Law.Com