Legal Malpractice

Blame the Judge in Legal Malpractice

By (Andrew Lavoott Bluestone)

Judges handle hundreds of cases a year, many more during a career.  what happens when a judge is removed from the bench for criminal acts?  Can the cases presided over by this particular judge unravel?

In this Pennsylvania legal malpractice case, the judge recused himself during trial when an attorney accused him of showing favoritism.  The attorney nevertheless lost, and in a facially unrelated coincidence, the judge was removed from the bench.  Now the judge faces criminal charges, and the attorney is the target in a legal malpractice case arising from that trial.  How do these intersect?

"A Hazleton law firm seeking to overturn a $3.4 million legal malpractice award wants to use information regarding criminal charges against two Luzerne County judges in its appeal.

Attorneys for the Laputka, Bayless, Ecker and Cohn law firm filed a motion Thursday asking a judge to allow them to use information released this week regarding the plea agreements of former judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan.

The Laputka firm is seeking to negate a jury verdict entered in favor of Bernadette Slusser. Slusser’s family filed a legal malpractice case against the Laputka firm alleging it provided faulty legal representation in a series of lawsuits related to land transactions.

The Slussers were represented by the Powell Law Firm.

In the motion filed on Thursday, Jeffrey McCarron, an attorney for the Laputka firm, said the recent allegations against Ciavarella and Conahan should be included in their post-trial motions. The two former jurists, who were removed from the county bench by the state Supreme Court this week, face federal charges in an ongoing public corruption probe. They are accused of taking $2.6 million in kickbacks in connection with a juvenile detention center."

Full post as published by New York Attorney Malpractice Blog on January 30, 2009 (boomark / email).