Whether in Legal Malpractice or elsewhere, if an attorny seeks legal fees after termination, Rule 137 must be followed explicitly. Here is an attorney who tried, came close, and lost the case. Referring a client to the web site is simply not good enough. Details.

The extent of attorney-client privilege in legal malpractice depends on the factual setting. One point is the “at issue” principal which allows disclosure of materials that are said to be at issue in the legal malpractice. Another interesting idea is joint defense and privilege between defendants. Here is a recent case on point.
“The same law firm held plaintiff, Beacon, and other named defendants as clients. It opposed, on attorney-client privilege grounds, plaintiff’s motion for documents. In July 2005, the court held that an April 2005, waiver of attorney-client privilege, by Beacon’s liquidator, did not waive the privilege as to the firm’s other clients”

Sometimes clients file a counterclaim for legal malpractice after the attorney sues for unpaid fees. Sometimes the client starts a legal malpractice case based on miscommunication. Sometimes the attorney is just plain wrong. Here is a story for your review.

There is a hierarchy of attorney malpractice mistakes, recognizable by even a layperson. At the head of the list is the failure to start an action, whether a result of failure to file a notice of claim under the General Municipal Law, The Public Authorities Law, the Court of Claims act, or other claim-notice acts. That failure may be a result of failing to file the summons and complaint, or failing to purchase a new index number for the complaint. This group of “failing to file” the case is easily recognizable to the lay juror. Continue Reading Hierarchy of Legal Malpractice Mistakes

The most common causes of attorney malpractice litigation:

1.Poor communication with the client
Always at the base of a professional malpractice lawsuit
2.Statute of Limitations problems
3.Suing a client over the bill.
Often precipitates a malpractice lawsuit
4.Notice of Claim problems
Includes municipal, agency, Court of Claims, private notice requirements, and other condition precedent situations
5.Calendar control problems
Marking off calendar, non-appearance at conferences, defaults, abandonment of motions
6.Failure to supply necessary documents
Affidavit of merits, Admissible evidence affidavit for Summary Judgment, Doctor’s affidavit for threshold cases, affidavit of a reasonable excuse and a meritorious cause of action;
7.Discovery Failures
Preclusion, dismissal for willful, contumacious behavior, failure to get necessary information for use at trial, failure to serve expert responses
8.Conflicts of interest
Matrimonial, commercial situations
9.Escrow and fee violations
Non-refundable fees, holding back escrows, failure to remit
10.Settlements and Stipulations without authority
Attorney’s agreement will bind client even against client’s wishes

Malpractice is a professional’s failure to use minimally adequate levels of care, skill or diligence in the performance of the professional’s duties, causing harm to another. In New York, attorney malpractice is defined as a “deviation from good and accepted legal practice, where the client has been proximately damaged by that deviation, but for which, there would have been a different, better or more positive outcome.” Continue Reading Elements of Legal Malpractice

There is no end of irony in thi line of work. Here is a legal malpractice defense and counterclaim which was essentially precluded when defendant counter-claimant was precluded from offering expert testimony. Why? Defendant missed several discovery deadlines in naming and offering the report of the expert. Here is the decision from NJ.

Here is a defense attorney’s tale of plaintiff attorney’s legal malpractice, written in real time about a real case. Have the corporate clients moved on to a legal malpractice attorney? Time will tell. The story.