This case from Long Island is tantalizing.  Attorney represents wife in a divorce proceeding, and is stalked by husband.  Attorney successfully obtains a $ 300,000 verdict for intentional infliction of emotional distress, on a counterclaim.  Verdict is reduced and reduced again, but…

Eves v Ray 2007 NY Slip Op 06098 Decided on July 17, 2007 Appellate Division, Second Department

"In particular, the record demonstrates that on several occasions, the plaintiff, in attempt to intimidate the defendant during his legal representation of the plaintiff’s former wife in a custody proceeding, threatened the defendant both physically and financially, and stalked him. Moreover, the plaintiff continued to engage in this conduct despite the fact that the defendant had obtained a temporary order of protection and was pursuing a harassment charge against the plaintiff ."

This has to be today’s big story. This will be all over the web, and will be reported in much greater detail.  But  the NYLJ reports:

"A federal judge has ruled unconstitutional most of the sweeping new restrictions on attorney advertising introduced earlier this year by the New York courts.

The restrictions, which went into effect Feb. 1, had barred lawyers from, among other practices, using nicknames that suggest an ability to obtain results or touting "characteristics clearly unrelated to legal competence."

Alexander & Catalano, the Syracuse personal injury firm that challenged the constitutionality of the advertising restrictions, had previously run ads calling its lawyers "heavy hitters" and showing them towering over downtown office buildings or sprinting at impossible speeds to help clients."

Here is a story from Texas.  Prominent engineer’s downfall:  negligence or conspiracy ?

"The former director of a city sewer program is suing several engineering firms and three Austin lobbyists, alleging that they conspired to get him fired.

Bill Moriarty previously led the Austin Clean Water Program, the city’s $200 million effort to fix old sewer lines by 2009 to avoid federal fines. He was fired in 2005 after a city investigation concluded that he should have disclosed that a woman he lives with and is dating, Diane Hyatt, got work through the program.

Moriarty and Hyatt are suing six engineering firms and lobbyists David Armbrust, Cis Myers and former Austin Mayor Bruce Todd, who represent some of the firms.

The firms were seeking retaliation, the lawsuit says, because Moriarty streamlined Clean Water projects and the firms feared that they would lose money or contracts. Moriarty is also suing Armbrust and his law firm, Armbrust & Brown LLP, for legal malpractice. Armbrust helped negotiate Moriarty’s contract when he was hired for the Clean Water Program and later worked to get him fired, the lawsuit says.

The illinois Legal Malpractice Blog writes about the statute of limitations:

"A recent Illinois Appellate decision (Warnock v. Karm Winand & Patterson) stemming from a failed real estate sale addresses the issue of when the two-year statute of limitations begins to run in a legal malpractice case – is it 1) when the underlying action is first filed and the client is put on notice that his attorney(s) may have been negligent or 2) when a decision is rendered in the underlying action resulting in a monetary loss for the client due to the lawyer’s negligence. In it’s decision the Appellate Court found that in the majority of legal malpractice cases the answer is the latter, saying "in Illinois, a ’cause of action for legal malpractice will rarely accrue prior to the entry of an adverse judgment, settlement, or dismissal of the underlying action in which the plaintiff has become entangled due to the purportedly negligent advice of his attorney.’" (citations omitted). The Court further stated, "[t]he existence of actual damage…is essential to a viable cause of action for legal malpractice."

Law.Comreports that :"As Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw readies for potential claims arising out of its representation of failed commodities brokerage Refco, the Chicago law firm’s work for another bankrupt company has already triggered a $17 million suit against it.

The bankruptcy trustee for defunct health care management company CMGT Inc. has sued its former lawyers at Mayer Brown for failing to challenge lawsuits brought against the company by its former financial adviser, Gerry Spehar. According to the trustee, the unopposed litigation crippled the company and handed Spehar a $17 million default judgment.

But Mayer Brown claims the trustee’s suit is part of a scheme by none other than Spehar, who it claims is financing the case in the hopes of turning a worthless default judgment based on meritless and speculative damages claims into a $17 million windfall. In court papers, the firm has denounced the suit as a "perversion of the civil and bankruptcy systems."

However, one man’s worthless default judgment based on meritless and speculative damges, is another’s diamond.

Randy Johnson of Dallas says that legal malpractice litigation now resenbles cannibalism. "A decision this week requiring Houston trial lawyer John O’Quinn to pay at least $35.7 million to former clients may be a harbinger of a legal trend — lawyer cannibalism.

"When I started suing other lawyers in 1981, no one else wanted to do it. But today, oh my God, everybody is competing for this business. They think it’s a gold mine to sue other lawyers. The cannibalism metaphor really works here," said Randy Johnston, a Dallas legal malpractice lawyer."The meaning this litigation has for lawyers is that no matter how good a job you do for your clients, you are always going to be subjected to second-guessing and a second generation lawsuit," said Jefferson, whose clients have included O’Quinn. "

Defense attorneys in legal malpractice cases often try to use a Notice to Admit [CPLR 3123] to get over the hump of some point within their burden of proof.  A notice to admit is really for use with non-controversial factual situations, for example, whether a documents is genuine, or to avoid proofs of an underlying, but not controversal fact.

Here the Syracuse defense attorneys went beyond the pale, and not only mixed law and facts in their notice to admit, but pushed on with its use after plaintiff’s attorney, in effect, denied the notice by letter.  The AD held that SupCt should have denied the defense use of the notice to admit.

Williams v Kublick
2007 NY Slip Op 05844
Decided on July 6, 2007
Appellate Division, Fourth Department

"Memorandum: In this legal malpractice action, Jan S. Kublick and Davoli, McMahon and Kublick, P.C. (collectively, defendants) served a notice to admit facts concerning the underlying lawsuits (see CPLR 3123). We previously affirmed an order denying the motion of defendants for summary judgment dismissing the complaint against them (Williams v Kublick, 30 AD3d 1032), and we thereafter determined that Supreme Court erred in granting defendants’ subsequent motion seeking that same relief (Williams v Kublick, ___ AD3d ___ [June 8, 2007]).

The court erred in granting the motion of defendants seeking an order deeming the facts in their notice to admit as having been admitted by plaintiff and in denying plaintiff’s cross motion seeking an order permitting plaintiff to respond to the notice to admit "as though [the response was] timely interposed." Although plaintiff failed to comply with CPLR 3123 (a) by responding to the notice in a sworn statement in which he either denied the facts therein or explained why the facts could not be truthfully admitted or denied, it is undisputed that counsel for the parties corresponded with respect to the notice to admit. Defendants’ counsel and plaintiff’s counsel exchanged correspondence with respect to plaintiff’s position that the facts sought to be admitted involved mixed questions of law and fact and therefore required resolution at trial (see generally DeSilva v Rosenberg, 236 AD2d 508). Defendants thus were aware of the basis for plaintiff’s failure to respond to the notice to admit. We note in addition that there was [*2]extensive discovery with respect to the issues in the underlying lawsuits. We therefore conclude that the court abused its discretion in denying plaintiff’s cross motion (see generally Kowalski v Knox, 293 AD2d 892, 893). "

Majority shareholders, minority shareholders and the company’s attorney.  Who has the right to sue if things go wrong?  The answer depends on who has privity with the attorney.  Here is an Ohio case on the issue.

Reported by Legal Newsline: "Attorneys for majority owners of close corporations — ones allowed by law to act more informally than a normal corporation — may be sued for malpractice by minority owners, the Ohio Supreme Court recently decided.

The appeal in the case LeRoy, et al. v. Allen, Yurasek & Merklin asked the Court to decide if plaintiffs outside the attorney-client relationship can make a valid malpractice claim against the attorney. In a unanimous decision delivered Wednesday, the Court decided that a bad faith or collusion charge is appropriate.

However, the Court decided that minority owners could not proceed on the basis of being in privity with the majority owner — having virtually the same legal interests"