Legal malpractice case is brought and settled.  Now, after " a legal malpractice suit against Dallas securities attorney Phillip W. Offill Jr. and his former firm settled, the parties involved seemed happy, but that satisfaction was short-lived. Now a Dallas firm that represented plaintiff Consolidated Sports Media Group in that legal malpractice case has filed its own suit against CSMG, its co-counsel and others, alleging it was cut out of the deal.

But the new suit brought by Nowak & Stauch raises a separate issue: whether it discloses too much information surrounding the confidential settlement CSMG and other plaintiffs reached in the legal malpractice case. "

Here is a news release which tells us precious little about the legal malpractice case.  Would a US newspaper have run this article without telling who the law firm which paid $ 19 million was?

"Tokyo Kikai Seisakusho Ltd. <6335> said Friday it will receive 19 million dollars to settle its dispute with a U.S. law firm over alleged legal malpractice.

The Japanese newspaper rotary press maker declined to name the law firm or give details of the malpractice, citing a nondisclosure agreement.

Tokyo Kikai revised up its group net profit estimate to 2.2 billion yen from 1.1 billion yen for the year to March 2008.

Tokyo Kikai had been seeking damages payments from the law firm blaming it for the loss of a U.S. antidumping suit that led the Japanese company to pay 4,480 million yen in damages to U.S. printing maker Goss International Corp. "

We reported on this case several months ago.  Keno operator loses  when"he got bad legal advice from attorneys with Omaha’s McGrath North Mullin & Kratz law firm when he sought to dissolve his former partnership with Robert Anderson in 1998. "   Now after a reduction by the trial court, the appellate court has reinstated a higher verdict. "A Douglas County District Court jury awarded Bellino $1.6 million after a 2006 malpractice trial. But the verdict was reduced by the judge to $229,000 — the amount of Bellino’s attorney and accounting fees in the case.

In a 6-0 decision, the Supreme Court restored the original award. The high court said it was reasonable for jurors to conclude that the attorneys’ negligence substantially increased Bellino’s costs for dissolving the partnership. "

Settlements and the method by which they are reached are often very important in legal malpractice.  Usually, the issue is whether the settlement truely reflects what plaintiff bargained for, or is the plaintiff merely dissatisfied?  Here is a case from the 2d Circuit that comments on this problem.  In court settlements are generally sacrosanct in New York state and federal courts, and this case is no exception.  Here is the decision in Powell v. Omnicom, 06-0300-cv ,Decided: August 7, 2007 in the U.S. COURT OF APPEALS SECOND CIRCUIT

The Court of Claims is the only court in which New York State may be sued, and of course, only New York State may be sued in the Court of Claims.  It is often said that the Court of Claims is a statutory court with special rules.  One of the rules was that a specific amount had to be stated in a complaint, and the failure to do so was jurisdictional.

Claimants [not plaintiffs] lost their rights based upon this small defect.  Now, the law has changed. Today’sNYLJ article reports:

"Suits being brought in the Court of Claims need no longer specify how much in damages the plaintiffs are seeking in actions for personal injury, medical, dental or podiatric malpratice or wrongful death, under legislation signed into law by Governor Eliot Spitzer.

The governor wrote in an approval message that the new statute is in response to the ruling in Kolnacki v. State of New York, 8 NY3d 277 (2007) in which the Court of Appeals, ever the stickler for adhering to court filing procedures, dismissed a Court of Claims action because it failed to have a completed ad damnum clause (NYLJ, March 23, 2007)."

The governor also signed a bill that allows judges to ignore, or allow to be corrected, harmless errors made in court papers at the commencement of actions.

Law Com reports a further spin off of the QualComm litigation problems. 

"It’s something no lawyer wants to get — a ruling from a federal magistrate saying, essentially: “come on down to court and explain to us why you don’t think you should be sanctioned for your behavior.” But that’s what lawyers at Day Casebeer Madrid & Batchelder, based in Cupertino, Calif., received earlier this week from San Diego federal magistrate Barbara Major.

The ruling was essentially a follow-up to a separate ruling made last week by San Diego federal judge Rudi Brewster. Judge Brewster held that wireless giant Qualcomm and its trial counsel, which included lawyers from Day Casebeer, committed “gross litigation misconduct” by withholding crucial evidence in a patent dispute brought by Broadcom. He ordered Qualcomm to pay legal fees to Broadcom, which could amount to $10 million.

Earlier this week, Qualcomm general counsel Lou Lupin resigned in the wake of the situation. Now the spotlight is swinging to the wireless company’s outside counsel, who have been requested to appear in court on Aug. 29 to explain themselves. "

Law blog reports this story of an attorney who saved a life.

"This past weekend, a Lerach Coughlin lawyer, Paul Geller (pictured, left), a name partner at the firm and head of its Boca Raton, Fla., office, saved a pregnant woman and her small schnauzer, Midnight Duke, from two attacking pitbulls"

"We caught up with Geller this morning, who recounted the tale. Geller was driving his 8-year old son home from a soccer practice last Saturday evening when, on a residential street in Delray Beach, he saw two pit bulls attacking a woman walking her dog. He pulled his car over and, after explaining to his son what he was about to do — “don’t try this at home” — he exited the car and ran to the melee. “The woman was on the ground and one of the pit bulls was on top of her,” he recalls. “Blood was everywhere.”

Geller says he was nervous — “the adrenaline was flowing” — but he had something going for him that the rest of us might not — he’s an expert in jujitsu, chronicled in this recent article from Boca Life. (Note to Hollywood writers looking for quirky-lawyer details for your next screenplay: Geller practices jujitsu in a room in Lerach Coughlin’s offices.)

“My instinct was that I should kick the dog that was attacking,” he says. “So that’s what I did.” Geller says he barked a few loud commands at the startled dog, at which point it and its colleague ran back toward the yard from which they’d come. Geller helped the woman and a badly wounded Midnight Duke into his car and saw them to safety. The aftermath — the woman, who suffered a bite to the face, and her baby are fine, as is Midnight Duke, who had to undergo a lengthy surgical procedure. Geller, who calls himself a dog-lover, says he isn’t sure what became of the pit bulls."

Times for notice of motion and cross-motion changed in July.  We reported it, and here is an article from the NYLJ by Howard Shafer which gives a comprehensive outline.

"The New York State Legislature passed an act amending New York Civil Practice Law and Rules R. 2214(b) and 2215.1 These recent amendments to the New York CPLR, effective July 3, 2007, make significant changes to the notice requirements for making and responding to motions cross-motions.

Notices of motion are usually served by mail. In the case of ordinary mail, five days are tacked onto CPLR R. 2214(b)’s requirement that the movant must give at least eight days notice of the motion, thus making the notice period 13 days.5 One day is tacked on where overnight mail service is used, making the notice period nine days.6

For example, if today is Aug. 1 and the motion papers are to be mailed today, the earliest day for which the hearing can be set if service is to be via ordinary mail is Aug. 14. If service is to be via overnight mail, the earliest day for which the hearing can be set is Aug. 10.

CPLR R. 2214(b) further requires that answering affidavits be served at least two days before the motion is noticed to be heard. Using the previous example, the other side must now serve its answering papers by placing it in the mail on Aug. 12. CPLR 2103(b)’s tacking-on of days does not apply to answering papers."