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This case illustrates an important difference in the law. In Pennsylvania, a party cannot sue for legal malpractice if that same party settled the underlying case, unless that party can prove that it was fraudulently induced into entering the settlement agreement.

In Kachmar, the plaintiff sued his former matrimonial lawyer on the ground that the lawyer failed to include a waiver of spousal support in a prenuptial agreement. Unfortunately, Kachmar settled the underlying divorce case, which meant that he could not bring a legal malpractice case.

Illinois does not follow this rule. In Illinois, a party which has settled the underlying case can sue for legal malpractice. Where a case is settled, it is often difficult to prove that but for the lawyer’s negligence, the party could have obtained a better result.

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This case and the opinions it has spawned proves that truth is stranger than fiction. The most recent opinion details the results of two trials and two appeals. The Appellate Court twice reversed trial court judgments that were incredibly lawyer friendly, that allowed the estate of a lawyer to retain funds that never belonged to the lawyer.

In 2006, Catherine Gombach deposited $504,889.29 in the trust account of her lawyer. Gombach was apparently attempting to protect some of her funds from creditor claims.

In 2010, Laurie began spending Gombach’s money and made improper withdrawals from the trust account. Gombach sued Laurie, who passed apparently passed away while the case was pending.

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This is a lawsuit between an attorney and his malpractice carrier. The lawyer, Thomas Edwards, handled a personal injury lawsuit on behalf of a commercial diver against the diver’s former employer, Cal Dive. He obtained a multi-million dollar settlement. The victory was short-lived as one year later Cal Dive filed suit against the diver and Edwards alleging that the diver had exaggerated his injuries. Cal Dive sued Edwards for restitution and unjust enrichment.

Edwards requested that his insurance company defend him, but they declined. Edwards filed suit. While he obtained summary judgment in the trial court, the Fifth Circuit reversed that ruling and entered judgment for the insurance company.

The Fifth Circuit held that claims for unjust enrichment and restitution were not legal malpractice claims because they asserted no breach of the standard of care. Therefore, the policy did not provide a duty to defend or require any other coverage. The pertinent reasoning is as follows:

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This case discusses the discovery rule in legal malpractice cases. Specifically, when should the plaintiff know that he had a claim against his employment lawyer?

The Facts:

In 2011, Nelson hired Padgitt, Padgitt & Peppey to negotiate an employment agreement with his new employer Launch Creative Marketing. Nelson signed the agreement in June 2011. Six months later, Launch terminated Nelson’s employment on the ground that the revenue collected from Nelson’s clients totaled less than $250,000 over the first six months of employment. The employment agreement permitted Launch to terminate Nelson for cause if the revenue collected from his old clients did not total $250,000 during the first six months of employment.

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The case is an important one for lawyers who are faced with an ethical issue. The New York Appellate Division held that the attorneys may communicate with their law firm’s general counsel to seek ethical advice and those communications are privileged and are not subject to discovery. In Stock, the lawyers were representing Stock in an arbitration hearing when one of the lawyers was called as a witness. The lawyers communicated with the firm’s general counsel and sought legal advice.

Stock later sued the law firm, claiming that the law firm gave negligence advice concerning his termination by MasterCard. In particular, Stock alleged that the firm failed to advise him that termination would accelerate the expiration of vested stock options.

In the lawsuit, Stock served discovery and sought disclosure of the communications between the lawyers who were representing him and the law firm’s general counsel. The court held that the attorney-client privilege applied and that the law firm was not required to disclose the communications.

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Sometimes, for reasons that are obscure, the ARDC takes a set of facts that appear to prove negligence and makes a disciplinary complaint out of them. In the case of Barbara Ann Susman, the ARDC charged an immigration lawyer with: (a) failing to act with reasonable diligence, failing to promptly inform the client of an adverse decision, failing to keep the client reasonably informed, making a false statement to the ARDC, conduct involving dishonesty, failing to respond to the ARDC’s demands for information and engaging in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice.

The facts demonstrated that Susman was hired by David Yonan to file an appeal in an immigration matter. On September 1, 2010, the Immigration Service denied his petition for permanent residence based on his status as an alien of extraordinary ability. Yonan had until October 4, 2010, to appeal. Yonan met with Susman but did not promptly pay the retainer she requested. On Saturday, October 2, 2010, Yonan made a deposit of the amount of the filing fee. Susman then took the appeal to Federal Express and believed that Federal Express would deliver the appellate papers by Monday, October 4. Some months later, the USCIS rejected the appeal on the ground that the notice of appeal was not received until October 5, 2010. Yonan declined to appeal that decision. Later, he retained another lawyer and moved to reopen his appeal.

The Panel ruled that the ARDC failed to prove a lack of diligence because Yonan did not pay the filing fee until the last minute. The Panel noted that the evidence showed that Susman acted with diligence:

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The ARDC has filed a complaint against Rhonda Crawford who was employed as a law clerk by the Circuit Court of Cook County. Ms. Crawford is currently running for judge as well. The ARDC alleges that Ms. Crawford wore a judge’s robe and presided over three matters. The allegations are these:

4. On August 11, 2016, Judge Valarie Turner (“Judge Turner”) was assigned to Courtroom 098 in Markham (“Courtroom 098”) for court calls scheduled to begin at 9:00 a.m., 10:30 a.m., and 1:00 p.m. On August 11, each of the three court calls involved traffic tickets that had been issued in the Village of Dolton. The Village of Dolton prosecutor working in Courtroom 098 that day was Luciano Panici, Jr. (“Panici, Jr.”).

5. On August 11, 2016, at approximately 9:00 a.m., Respondent was seated in the witness box to the left of the judge’s bench in Courtroom 098. Shortly thereafter, Judge Turner entered Courtroom 098 wearing her judicial robe, took the bench, and began the 9:00 a.m. call. Respondent remained seated in the witness box throughout the 9:00 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. calls, between which there was no recess.

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This opinion of the Seventh Circuit discusses a legal malpractice case arising out of a class action. The plaintiff, Carlos Rocha, brought a class action against Federal Express. He alleged that Federal Express did not properly classify his employment. Shortly before the underlying case settled, he fired his lawyers. Rocha then refused to participate in the settlement of the underlying case. The court dismissed him as a plaintiff without prejudice. Rocha then filed a legal malpractice case against the lawyers who had represented him.

The district court dismissed the legal malpractice case because Rocha’s claims were viable when Rocha terminated his lawyers. If the case was viable, the lawyers could not have made an error that caused Rocha to lose the case. The Court of Appeals agreed and affirmed. The court explains its reasoning as follows:

“In the present case, Rocha’s Fluegel claims were still viable in September 2012, when Defendants were discharged. As an initial matter, Rocha retained Johnson as counsel before discharging Defendants in September 2012.[2]

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I have written before about Avvo and how frustrating it can be to be reviewed on Avvo. Often the reviews are baseless angry rants. Indeed, one of the reviews on my own Avvo profile is by a person who never engaged me (and I believe never spoke to me). My advice to lawyers who received a negative Avvo review is this: “Suck it up and deal with it.” The reason for my advice is that the lawyer is bound to hold client confidences confidential and therefore cannot really respond to an Avvo review. If you reveal a confidence, you can expect a disciplinary complaint.

It turns out that my advice was probably correct.

The case is captioned John Vyrdolyak v. Avvo, Inc., 16 C 2833. Judge Robert Gettleman has dismissed Vyrdolyak’s complaint alleging that Avvo was wrongfully “using plaintiff’s identity for commercial purposes without plaintiff’s consent” in violation of the Illinois Right of Publicity Act (IRPA), 765 ILCS 1075/1 et seq. Vyrdolyak also objected that Avvo would place ads on his profile page and profit from them. Vyrdolyak compared his situation to that of  former Bulls star, Michael Jordan, who successfully stated a claim that Jewel was seeking to profit from his name. Jordan v. Jewel Food Stores, Inc., 743 F.3d 509, 515 (7th Cir. 2014).

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The Terra Museum sued its former attorneys, DLA Piper, for legal malpractice arising out of a real estate deal gone bad. Terra claimed that, due to a drafting error, it was required to pay the other party to the real estate deal millions more than it should have had to pay. The Statute of Repose gives a client six years to sue the attorney for malpractice. The Statute of Repose starts to run when the attorney commits the negligent act, not when the client discovers the error. The court explained that Terra had opportunities to file suit during the

The court explained that Terra had opportunities to file suit during the six-year repose period. The court rejected an argument that the repose period does not begin to run until the transaction was completed.

¶ 33 We conclude that the event giving rise to Terra’s injuries occurred on May 29, 2007, when Terra and NM Project executed the first amendment and chose BOMA 96 as the method of measuring the retail parcel without the exclusionary language.Fricka v. Bauer, 309 Ill. App. 3d 82, 88 (1999) (“The plain language of the statute requires filing of the lawsuit within six years of the acts or omissions that form the basis for the complaint.”). The measurements of the rentable area under the BOMA 96 standards, without excluding the common space, resulted in the increases of the retail parcel space, which required Terra to engage in arbitrations to dispute the measurements, incur the related attorney fees and expenses and make the retail parcel credit payment at the closing. Terra’s asserted injuries directly flowed from DLA’s allegedly negligent omissions and acts as to the first amendment.

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