In Simoni v Costigan   2012 NY Slip Op 07882   Decided on November 20, 2012   Appellate Division, First Department  plaintiff tries to get the ongoing personal injury action consolidated with a legal malpractice action.  Plaintiff fails.  We cannot tell why, from the decision, and the underlying Supreme Court decision is not available to us.  In general…

In legal malpractice litigation there is always the "prior" or "defendant" attorney and usually a "successor" attorney.  What discovery may entail between them, and what portion of the successor’s file may be disclosed?  Ingram Yuzek Gainen Carroll & Bertolotti, LLP v
Coden   2012 NY Slip Op 32741(U)   October 23, 2012  Supreme Court, New York…

Regular practitioners get little enough guidance in the appellate process, and reasons for dismissals and other outcomes are not always apparent or even stated.  Here, in two cases a pro-se plaintiff has her case dismissed, but with almost no guidance.  In Cascardo v Snitow Kanfer Holtzer & Millus, LLP   2012 NY Slip Op 07615  …

Attorneys skip from firm to firm, and take cases with them.  Some cases hold that the former law firm remains on the hook even though the attorney left.  Rosenbaum v Sheresky Aronson Mayefsky & Sloan, LLP   2012 NY Slip Op 07651   Decided on November 14, 2012   Appellate Division, Second Department does not.  While…

Pryor Cashman is no stranger to legal malpractice cases. In today’s NYLJBrendan Pierson reports on one such case.  The lawsuit, Fitzsimmons v. Pryor Cashman, 651360/10, was filed in August 2010.

"The plaintiffs are the trustees of three benefit funds for the Construction Workers Local 147, better known as the Sandhogs. The plaintiffs allege Pryor Cashman’s malpractice…

Plaintiff buys a co-op in 2002.  She re-finances in 2008 using the same attorney.  In 2010 she hires the same attorney to sell the unit and  learns for the first time that the certificate of occupancy permits the unit to be used only as a professional office, not for residential use.  Is an action for legal malpractice…

Once upon a time, the universally known and understood standard of whether a settlement (as against a dismissal or a verdict) of the underlying case affected the right to sue the attorney could be stated as "Was the settlement effectively compelled my mistakes of the attorney?"  Now that bedrock principal seems to have been eroded…

Pro-se litigation in legal malpractice has a poor prognosis.  There are many idiosyncratic aspects to legal malpractice cases, and Pouncy v Solotaroff    2012 NY Slip Op 07381  Decided on November 8, 2012   Appellate Division, First Department is one example.  What is the line between reasonable and unreasonable strategic choice?
 

"The IAS court properly…