The Illinois Appellate court recently affirmed a grant of summary judgment in the case captioned Requet v. Stengel, Bailey & Robertson, 2023 IL App (3d) 210203-U. The opinion is unpublished, but it is worth reading. Requet was the managing member of PVY Development, an LLC engaged in developing and selling…
One of the persistent and more difficult challenges in legal malpractice cases is proving that the client would have won the underlying case but for the negligence of the lawyer. This is known as but/for causation or proximate causation. In this case the plaintiff was a superintendent of a school…
In Mid-City Electrical Corporation v. Peckar & Abramson, 2023 NY Slip Op 1085, the New York Appellate Division, Second Department affirmed the dismissal of legal malpractice claims against company attorneys. First, the court ruled that the owners of Mid-City were not clients of Peckar & Abramson because they were not…
One of the more obscure rules in the world of legal malpractice is that legal malpractice claims cannot be assigned. The lawyer-client relationship is one of “privity.” It is a direct relationship between the client and the lawyer. Sometimes in litigation, one party requests that the other party assign to…
In Julio Chicas v. Christopher J. Cassar, et al, No. 2023 NY Slip Op 00202, Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, Second Department, the plaintiff sued for malpractice claiming that the lawyer defendants failed to sue a tortfeasor. The case was dismissed at the trial level, but the…
In Bei Yang v. Pagan Law Firm, PC, 2022 NY Slip Op 31007(U) Supreme Court, New York County, the plaintiff hired the lawyer for a medical malpractice case. That case settled for $1.3 million. Plaintiff then sued the lawyer for legal malpractice. Plaintiff alleged that the lawyer coerced him into…
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…
We are often asked to evaluate potential malpractice claims. Here is what we need to know before we can take your case: (a) What happened? How did things go bad? Why do you believe your lawyer was responsible? In your opinion what was the mistake of the lawyer? (b) When…
In Scully v. Novack & Macey, LLP, 2022 IL App (1st) 210319-U, the Illinois Appellate Court affirmed the dismissal of slander of title claims against the Defendant law firm. The law firm represented some of the parties to a family feud over inherited real estate. During the litigation, the law…
The Second District of the Illinois Appellate Court recently decided Nutter v. Schiller DuCanto & Fleck, 2022 IL App (2d) 210376, in which it held that a legal malpractice claim was barred by res judicata because the lawyer and the client had previously engaged in litigation over the lawyer’s fee petition.…