Legal Malpractice

Arbitrations and Collateral Estoppel in Legal Malpractice

By (Andrew Lavoott Bluestone)

The perennial question of whether a prior proceeding might influence a later proceedings arises again in Feinberg v. Boros, 2010 NY Slip Op 30797, by Justice Emily Jane Goodman, in Supreme Court, New York County. 

The legal malpractice claim arose after an arbitration between plaintiff and his former business partner, where defendants acted as Feinberg's party arbitrator and later as counsel in a law suit against the former accountants to the business.  The claim is that defendants failed to advise plaintiff about the collateral estoppel effect of the arbitration award on his subsequent suit against the accountants for malpractice.

Such malpractice - malpractice lawsuits are more common than one might imagine.  While the popular conception is that the client is litigious, or lawsuit-crazy, the better and more accurate version is that the client has moved from one situation to the next in search of a proper finding of liability.

Full post as published by New York Attorney Malpractice Blog on April 22, 2010 (boomark / email).