One of the beautiful things about the US is that every state has its own law.  It was shocking to learn in Law School that events a few miles away, across a state border could be handled differently.  Sure, other countries, but Connecticut?

Here is a story  from Law.Com about how Texas handles executor-estate attorney…

Criminal law and legal malpractice law seldom intersect.  One reason is an almost complete ban on criminal defendants suing their defense attorneys.  In order to sue, one must show "actual innocence" which is customarily demonstrated by reversal upon appeal or exoneration.  Since that is a rare occurrence, there is little vitality to criminal defense legal…

Privity of contract is an important element of legal malpractice.  For policy reasons [and to avoid infinite and endless litigation] courts enforce a rather strict requirement that one may sue their own attorney, but not the opponent’s in legal malpractice. There are exceptions.

In LYDIAN PRIVATE BANK d/b/a VIRTUALBANK, -v- RICHARD A. LEFF, UNITED STATES…

In SASH v.  ROSAHN, ESQ., as the Supervising Attorney for the Parole Revocation Unit of Defendant The Legal Aid Society, UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK  2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 52480   June 16, 2009, Decided  we see a three-pronged attack on plaintiff’s criminal defense attorney, each of which fails.…

Defendant attorneys in legal malpractice cases often have valid, technical, factual and compelling defenses.  Sometimes they claim that the alleged malpractice is a question of judgment; sometimes the law suit is too late.  In other examples, there is a less than clear relationship between the attorney and plaintiff, perhaps beneficiary to an estate or plaintiff…

In a short, one line reversal, the Court of Appeals put to rest a very old legal malpractice case, Gotay v. Breitbart..  The Court of Appeals simply wrote: "Plaintiff’s legal malpractice claim was not brought within the applicable statute of limitations period, and defendants-appellants established as a matter of law that the continuous representation…

Here is a blackletter rule:  You must obtain consent from the Worker’s Compensation carrier before settling a personal injury action in which there was WC payments.  If you don’t, the WC carrier takes a ‘vacation" and the plaintiff stops getting money.  Easy, No?

in Flaherty v Attie ;2009 NY Slip Op 51296(U)…

Legal Malpractice is unique, in that lawyers write the rules for suing lawyers, and those cases are heard by lawyers.  This situation does not obtain in any other field of jurisprudence.  Here is an interesting case from Small Claims Court and a report from the NYLJ by Mark Fass.  Read the case for its wide-ranging…