Legal Malpractice

Is This a Legal Malpractice Industry?

By (Andrew Lavoott Bluestone)

In a US District Court case, entitled Bloom v. Morley, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 104704 (EDNY, 2010) one attorney is suing a second attorney over fees and defamatnio.  What was the underlying story?

  "Plaintiff further contends that a "business relationship [existed] between Defendant and Lugli for purposes of multi-forum litigation * * *," whereby defendant and Lugli, "under the guise of Featured Realty, Inc.," commenced "a number of other actions" in other courts throughout the United States and then commenced legal malpractice actions against the attorneys who represented them in those actions. (Id.) Plaintiff alleges that those other actions are "striking[ly] similar[]" to this case, wherein defendant attempted to replace plaintiff as counsel for Northwestern with respect to the Bayshore property at issue. (Plf. Obj., pp. 2-3).

Eventually plaintiff attorney lost to defendant attorney.  In what might be a second example of in pari delicto" Judge Feuerstein of EDNY writes:

"The first attorney claimed that the second attorney engaged in the unlawful practice of law, and that he had been involved and participated in a number of legal actions throughout the United States that were strikingly similar to the case at bar, and then commenced legal malpractice actions against the attorneys in those actions. During that same period the second attorney made the defamatory comments at issue. The district court found, inter alia, that the first attorney submitted no evidence warranting a hearing on the issue of personal jurisdiction over the second attorney. The "new" evidence submitted by the first attorney in support of his objections was before the magistrate judge on the second attorney's motion to dismiss, existed prior to the second attorney's motion to dismiss, and could have been found and submitted in opposition to the motion. The remaining documents were created by the first attorney, and consisted only of his allegations that the second attorney unlawfully practiced law in New York and the first attorney's interpretation of certain documents allegedly supporting his allegations. Therefore, the first attorney was not entitled to the relief sought."

Full post as published by New York Attorney Malpractice Blog on October 25, 2010 (boomark / email).