Precursers to legal malpractice may often be found in the underlying case which has had sanctions granted. Here is one potential example of the act-sanctions-legal malpractice script. Here, the attorneys are sanctioned, based upon what another litigant calls a most extreme malice. When this is the story, client often turns on attorney. Details.

Office of Court Administration recently instituted a rule requiring attorneys to notify judges when 60 days had passed without a decision on motions. We bloged about this on the day of institution. Now OCA has recinded the rule. Why? It seems too many litigants were using the letter as a way of re-making their arguments. Details

Plaintiff brought the action for specific performance in a doomed commercial real estate deal. Plaintiff argued oral contract to sell real estate. Not a strong position? So weak, in this case, that the Appellate Division has awarded huge sanctions and legal fee awards against the plaintiff and its attorney. Will legal malpractice follow? Goldberg Weprin & Ustin were hit with the sanctions. Details. This case had already attracted the attention of Scott Molin of the NYLJ.

Plaintiff was represented in this whistleblower suit to great success. All was well until the attorney awarded himself both the statutory fee of $232,718, and then a contingent portion of the total award, leaving itself with about .70 of the whole award. Details.

The Madison County Record is a font of legal information. Today it reports on the legal malpractice action brought by a widow of an asbestos litigation plaintiff. His case was settled, she says, for a predetermined amount. Details.. “Judy Buckles once said, “Madison County is the best when it comes to representing asbestos victims and their families.” On Wednesday she filed a legal malpractice suit against two of the county’s busiest asbestos litigators Goldenberg, Heller, Antognoli, Rowland, Short & Gori The claim is that they predetermined and presettled groups of asbestos law suits. In the asbestos litigation industry. the vast number of suits within a jurisdiction have been managed by placing them in groups of ,say, one hundred, usually sorted by type of injury. The cases then travel, as a group, through the discovery – trial track. It is probably out of this situation, that this legal malpractice case arises.

The article says that this type of case is rare in England, but there was no trouble linking the English law firm v. law firm matter up with a SDNY legal malpractice case involving the British attorney in an estate matter in NY. Lefkowitz v. Bergman is proceeding in SDNY while the British component of the firm litigates in England. The claims are that defendant attorney negligently handled plaintiff’s father’s estate. Details.

Here is a blog blip from My shingle which riffs on the idea of the relationship between being nice and being sued. It has implications for legal malpractice too; As I have seen over and over, being nice may well disarm the intention to due. Details.

Here is a clearly worded article on the difference between vacating settlements made because of poor legal advice and the right to bring an legal malpractice action from California. Article.