Plaintiff retains attorney to handle promissory note case, and a default judgment is obtained.  Defendant owns real property, yet no lis pendens is filed.  Is this legal malpractice?  In Ali v Fink
2009 NY Slip Op 08766 ;Decided on November 24, 2009 ; Appellate Division, Second Department  we see the following:
"Several months later, the…

When do divorce, crime and legal malpractice intertwine?  In this case, at the intersection of divorce and fighting ex’s  In short, plaintiff had a child with GF, and they were separating, and at the same time arguing over custody and support.  GF charges plaintiff with child abuse, and a series of investigations start.  Attorney represents…

The decision doesn’t tell us in what capacity the attorneys represented the client, but they are now in suit over legal fees, with a legal malpractice counterclaim.  As we read this case, we wondered whether the time and effort was worth it.  Will there ever be a collection of fees?

in Bender, Jenson & Silverstein, …

Almost as popular as attorney fee cases are defenses of legal malpractice.  Here, in Sieratzki v Sei Global, Inc., NY Slip Op 32656(u), all the basics are laid out.  Attorney represents client for a longish period of time, and substitutes into an Arbitration entitled  HL Group Partners, LLC v. Sei Global, Inc  He worked on the case…

It does not happen often, but non-lawyers sometimes come to represent clients.  An impostor?  A simple clerical mistake?  We don’t know how it happened in this case, but in Natural Organics Inc. v Anderson Kill & Olick, P.C. ;2009 NY Slip Op 08472 ;Decided on November 17, 2009 ;Appellate Division, First Department "Plaintiff…

Monique Pillard, president of Elite Models, is the plaintiff in this legal malpractice case,  She was a defendant in a highly significant employment discrimination case revolving around an asthmatic worker who was fired, and the harassment and smoking that took place all around her.

in Pillard v. Goodman, Supreme Court, New York County…

There are some basic rules in legal malpractice litigation about fees.  One of these rules is that an attorney may be terminated at any time by the client, either for cause or without cause.  A corollary rule is that when an attorney is terminated for cause, he is due no compensation. 

That’s a pretty stark rule, and…

New York traveled through a sea change in its attorney disciplinary and ethical rules when the new rules were enacted in April.  Prior to the change, DR 2-107 did not require that a client be notified of the "percentage split" of fees between multiple attorneys working on a case; only the fact of multiple attorneys…