The attorney judgment rule essentially provides a lawyer with a defense to a malpractice action where the lawyer made a judgment call among one of several reasonable alternatives. The classic example would be to recommend a client plead guilty to a crime or for a criminal defendant not to testify…
In Kozal v. Snyder, 978 N.W.2d 174, the Nebraska Supreme Court held that an attorney did not commit legal malpractice because the purported error was a close call and the law was unsettled. in the underlying case, the attorney represented clients who wished to renew liquor licenses. The Nebraska Supreme…
Scarola Malone & Zubatov LLP v. Ellner, 2021 NY Slip Op 31199(U), April 8, 2021 (Supreme Court New York County) began with a lawsuit for legal fees against a client who declined to pay. The Defendant then filed a counterclaim alleging legal malpractice. The counterclaims alleged that the law firm…
State v. Roat, 466 P.3d 439 (Kansas 2020) is an unlikely case to provide an interesting discussion of a legal malpractice issue. Roat, having served his sentence, argued that his sentence for a crime had been computed incorrectly. The court held the appeal was moot. Roat tried to argue that…
The opinion in Lloyd’s Syndicate 2987 v. Furman, Kornfeld & Brennan, LLP, 2020 NY Slip Op 02365 is pithy but worth considering. Apparently the law firm advised an insurance company that it could deny coverage to a policyholder. That decision proved to be in error and the insurance company sued…
One defense in a legal malpractice case is that the lawyer exercised judgment (usually at trial) and, therefore, he should not be liable for legal malpractice. One way to explain this is to make an analogy to the role of a baseball manager. In my example, the manager’s team is…