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The question of whether an attorney can be held liable for failing to properly prepare an eyewitness for a deposition was addressed by an appellate court. A disgruntled client who lost a jury trial concerning a motor vehicle accident claimed that if only the sole eyewitness had been better prepar...
On March 31, 2020 the Court of Appeals ruled that an attorney who was claimed to have wrongfully induced a client to file a frivolous lawsuit in order to generate a legal fee could not be held liable under New York State Judiciary Law Section 487. A violation of this statute by an attorney is a c...
Ames & Gough's survey of leading legal malpractice insurers found some had experienced double digit increases in claims in 2019 and expect another surge in 2020. According to a spokesperson at Ames & Gough: "The sustained shutdown of the US economy this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic may trigg...
It has long been recognized that there is an exception to the general rule that you cannot sue an attorney for malpractice if you were not his/her client. The exception is where the plaintiff claims "fraud, collusion, malicious acts or other special circumstances". AG capital Funding v State St....
On October 31, 2019, an appellate court covering Manhattan refused to dismiss a legal malpractice claim against a law firm that litigated a client's foreclosure action involving a property on West 12th Street. The law firm moved to dismiss the client's claim arguing that it was filed four years a...
Last week, an appellate court reviewing the dismissal of a legal malpractice suit agreed: “Emails may be considered as documentary evidence if those papers are essentially undeniable.” The plaintiff sued the law firm that allegedly drafted a postnuptial agreement between him and his wife. The pla...
On September 20, 2019, First Mercury Insurance Company filed a lawsuit against the Manhattan based law firm of D'Amato & Lynch claiming that it unethically deposited a $1 million dollar settlement check into its operating account rather than a trust or escrow account. Worse yet, First Mercury cla...
Last week an appellate court agreed that because a client lied on a bankruptcy petition when he denied making pre-petition transfers to his wife--he could not blame his attorney who prepared the form. A federal bankruptcy court had denied the plaintiff a discharge of his debts finding that he mad...
On August 7, 2019, an appellate court reversed a Nassau County Supreme Court Justice and agreed to dismiss a legal malpractice claim based on a claim that the attorney's malpractice compelled it to settle a lawsuit. The underlying case was a claim for damage to a commercial building in Port Washi...
On July 31, 2019, a client suing an attorney for two different complaints of malpractice, lost one claim and the other survived to be scheduled for a jury trial. It was claimed that the attorney was negligent "during proceedings arising from plaintiff's operation of a biofuel business". The lower...
On June 11, 2019 an appellate court upheld the suspension of attorney for 18 months. During the course of representing a female client in a domestic relations matter, the client and attorney admittedly texted intimate photographs of each other along with sexually explicit messages. The client cla...
An upstate appellate court agreed (on July 11, 2019) that a client suing a law firm for malpractice during a litigation should have his case heard by a jury. The trial court held that the law firm's motion to dismiss the client's case on the ground that the complaint failed to state a cause of ac...
On July 2, 2019, the appellate court covering Manhattan upheld the dismissal of a legal malpractice claim alleging that the attorney representing the purchaser of a property for $1.4M was negligent for failing to secure court approval for the sale. The property was being sold by a not-for-profit ...
On June 26, 2019, an appellate court agreed that once a medical malpractice case was settled and attorneys fees awarded, the only forum to challenge the fee award is before the same court and not in a subsequent legal malpractice action. The medical malpractice claim was settled for $3,700,000 re...
On June 19, 2019 an appellate court overruled Nassau County Supreme Court Justice Jerome Murphy who dismissed a claim for forfeiture of legal fees against Garden City lawyers Cullen & Dykman. The client had retained Cullen & Dykman to analyze her ownership interest of $20 million in W.S. Wilson C...
On May 29, 2019, an appellate court agreed that a client's claim for legal malpractice is no longer the property of the client once they file for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 7 of the US Bankruptcy Code. In March 2012 the plaintiff/client filed for bankruptcy and 3 years later sued the att...
Court finds that attorney had admitted to negligence and causation on loss of property damage claim in letter to client. Attorney's arguments that the underlying case lacked merit rejected.
On April 18, 2019 an appellate court covering Manhattan ruled that a pro se plaintiff's claims of excessive billing, churning and redundant fees to proceed to trial. The law firm sued had been provided a draft
On February 20, 2019, the appellate court hearing appeals from Nassau County agreed that a jury should decide whether a law firm had engaged in a widespread fraudulent marketing campaign aimed at the Hispanic community on Long Island. The plaintiff who was a struggling homeowner with an escalatin...
The Appellate Division, Second Department issued two rulings this month arising out of motions to dismiss legal malpractice claims: one case from Rockland County favorable for attorneys and the other from Brooklyn favoring clients. In the Rockland County case the plaintiff claimed that they retai...
On January 30,2019, the appellate court covering Manhattan granted a law firm's motion to dismiss a legal malpractice action because there was a limited retainer agreement. The client had been expelled from the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine. The law firm agreed in writing to represent ...
On January 30, 2019, the appellate court covering Queens County reaffirmed a longstanding legal concept - you can't sue your adversaries attorney's for legal malpractice. The defendant law firm had represented the plaintiff's opponents in a prior action. The Court properly dismissed claims of leg...
On January 11, 2019, Justice Peter Sweeney of the Kings County Supreme Court denied a motion to dismiss a legal malpractice claim against a personal injury attorney who neglected to file a Notice of Claim against the City of New York within 90 days of the accident. The plaintiff suffered injurie...
On January 17, 2019, a Manhattan attorney, Marla Stein, who was convicted of income tax fraud following a guilty plea, was declared to have paid for her crime and will not be disbarred, as per the decision of the Appellate Division, Second Department. This attorney's husband, a vascular surgeon n...
On January 3, 2019 a disgruntled client filed suit against an attorney because his widely publicized racist rant was captured on video and the media publicly outed the names of his clients. In May 2018 Aaron Schlossberg, who practices law in Manhattan, was videotaped berating a restaurant employe...
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