An Ohio court has affirmed a verdict in favor of a legal malpractice plaintiff. By itself, that would not be worth discussing. However, the result of the case, a verdict of $1,192.12, was a clear disappointment for the plaintiff. The underlying case was an auto accident in which the plaintiff…
It is always a risk to talk to the media. Here, in a pithy opinion, The New York Appellate Division, First Department upheld a legal malpractice claim against a law firm. “Plaintiff alleges that he would not have lost his contractual right to certain deferred compensation if his attorneys had…
A limited representation agreement is an agreement where a lawyer agrees to undertake some services for a client, but does not agree to handle the client’s entire case. One example of a limited representation agreement is where a lawyer agrees to help a pro se litigant by writing briefs or…
The Minnesota Supreme Court has weighed in on the issue of the unauthorized practice of law. The question it considered is whether a complaint signed by a lawyer who was unlicensed is a nullity or whether the defect can be cured. This is an important question and it has been…
This is a legal malpractice case arising out of a divorce case. Plaintiff alleged that her ex-husband concealed assets during the divorce case and that her lawyers were negligent in failing to discover those assets. The lawyer defendants moved to dismiss the case, but the Appellate Division of the Supreme…
This is a legal malpractice case from Mississippi where the plaintiff hired an attorney, Omar Nelson, to bring a wrongful death action against the makers of Plavix. The plaintiff alleged that she asked Nelson to handle the case when he was an associate with the law firm, Sweet and Freese.…
Recently, the Illinois Appellate Court reversed a legal fee award because the lawyers who obtained the award failed to retain copies of their written timesheets after they entered the data into a computer program. Aliano v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 2015 IL App (1st) 143367. The plaintiff sought recovery under…
The case at issue here, Tuggle Schiro & Lichtenberger, P.C., v. Country Preferred Insurance Company, 2015 IL App (4th) 141036-U is an unpublished opinion of the Illinois Appellate Court for the Fourth District. The fee dispute arose out of an automobile accident case. The plaintiff, Carroll Watson, who was insured…
In this case, a taxi driver was advised by his bankruptcy lawyers to file a Chapter 7 case. The lawyers apparently failed to realize that the taxi driver owned a taxi medallion and that, in a Chapter 7 case, the medallion would be sold by the Trustee to cover the…
The case is captioned Illinois State Bar Association Mutual Insurance Company v. Thomas W. Burkhart, et al., 2015 IL App (4th) 140936-U. An attorney, Thomas Burkhart, represented Robert and Elizabeth Wilson in a real estate transaction and related litigation. That litigation ultimately resulted in a jury verdict of $30,000 for…