Law.Com reports that the Wiley Rein legal malpractice case has been dismissed. This was a case with major players: "The Wiley team that defended Blackwater in the underlying case consisted of Fred Fielding, now White House counsel; Barbara Van Gelder, now a partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius; Scott McCaleb, still a partner at Wiley; and…

A frequent defense in legal malpractice is that while a mistake has been made, plaintiff is not hury anyway.  Here is one example of that defense in a New Jersey Case.  THE MAKE UP BAR, Inc.
Plaintiff-Appellant, vs. COOPER, LEVENSON, APRIL, NIEDELMAN & WAGENHEIM, P.A., and ROBERT E. SALAD, ESQ.,

A hair stylist…

This article from the Southeast Texas Record amplifies the current debate there over mandatory disclosure of legal malpractice coverage.  "There’s a movement in Austin to change this. Last week, a state Supreme Court task force voted down a measure to require Texas lawyers who don’t carry malpractice insurance to tell potential clients beforehand. Supporters plan…

This case illustrates how difficult it may be to prosecute a Judiciary law 487 case in a legal malpractice setting.  Sara Kinberg, Plaintiff-Appellant, v Heidi Opinsky, Defendant-Respondent.
SUPREME COURT OF NEW YORK, APPELLATE DIVISION, FIRST DEPARTMENT , 2008 NY Slip Op 4616Decided May 22, 2008.

We have seen unsuccessful 487 cases with allegations of forged…

An unrelated article in the NYLJ related a cycle in the franchising industry yesterday…from settlement by litigation, through resolution by arbitration, and then on to wide-scale mediation.  Legal malpractice may well be following the same cycle.  As the California Attorney’s Fees Bl;og reports, arbitration is the thing in California. 

"First, the appellate court found the…

Do you understand Chapter 11 Bankruptcy practice?  Can you define "cram down" or "impaired class" or "non-recourse loans"?  We can’t, but this case is a primer in Chapter 11 practice and the legal malpractice which may arise in a case.

The facts are complicated, involve general and limited partnerships, non-recourse loans, cross-collateralization and multiple state…

This case from New Jersey illustrates the border line between behavior that is so bad that an expert is not needed at trial to testify on whether there was a deviation, and behavior that is bad, but still requires an expert.  The NJ court found in TARUTIS, v. ALAN ACKERMAN and GREGORY WISOTSKY,  that:

"No expert…

The politicians are in Iowa, the primaries started there, and today we report on a legal malpractice and recusal case in Iowa.  Here two different strands of problems for the legal malpractice plaintiff are twisted together.  One of the strands concerns the judges comment about the legal malpractice plaintiff and defendant:  "one is dishonest, and…