Legal Malpractice

Pennsylvania Legal Malpractice and Ballard Spahr

By (Andrew Lavoott Bluestone)

Law.Com reports that the law firm of Ballard Spahr won a jury trial yesterday. 

Beyond the usual legal malpractice issues and testimony, there was plenty of star power [in a law sort of way] as " famed Florida litigator Roy Black of Black Srebnick Kornspan & Stumpf represented Epstein along with Boca Raton-based Lance W. Shinder and local counsel Marc R. Steinberg, managing partner of Rubin Glickman Steinberg & Gifford in Lansdale, Pa.

His attorneys said in court documents that Crusader was never mentioned at the meeting with Epstein and Kaplinsky and that Epstein met with Crusader, and its then-executive -- now gubernatorial candidate -- Tom Knox, on his own in February 1999. "

"A Montgomery County jury vindicated Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll on Monday in a breach of fiduciary duty suit brought against the firm by a man seeking between $17 million to $30 million in lost profits plus interest and punitive damages.

Plaintiff Saul R. Epstein originally claimed the firm and Alan S. Kaplinsky, the firm's consumer financial services group chairman, committed legal malpractice, breached their fiduciary duty and interfered with a prospective contractual relationship, according to court documents. In Epstein v. Kaplinsky, Epstein claimed the firm shared his prospective business interests with another firm client involved in similar work, according to court documents.

An 11-to-1 jury found that Ballard Spahr owed a duty to Epstein but found by the same margin that neither Kaplinsky nor the firm breached that duty, according to Ballard Spahr partner Darryl May who acted as in-house counsel for the firm during the case. "

Full post as published by New York Attorney Malpractice Blog on June 11, 2008 (boomark / email).