Legal Malpractice

NJ Legal Malpractice Case against Drinker Biddel Reinstated

By (Andrew Lavoott Bluestone)

NY Lawyer reports that a legal malpractice case against Drinker Biddel, dismissed on summary judgment, has been reversed and remanded for trial.  In a double whammy, DB's cause of action for legal fees has also been reversed.

"A New Jersey appeals court on Tuesday reinstated a claim that 630-lawyer Drinker Biddle committed malpractice that forced a litigation client to make a bad settlement and lose hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The judges also set aside a trial judge's ruling last year that the client, Verdure Asset Corp. of New York, owed the firm $240,000 for work its Princeton office did on the troubled case in 2003.

Instead of dismissing the malpractice suit on summary judgment, a Mercer County, N.J., judge should have let a jury decide, the appeals panel ruled in an unpublished opinion, Verdure Asset Corp. v. Wheeler, A-3084-06.

Lead defendant Jonathan Wheeler, a Cherry Hill solo who also represented Verdure, won dismissal in 2006 and is no longer part of the case.

Verdure turned to Wheeler in 2000 to sue two environmental companies whose work removing oil tanks allegedly devalued a 47-acre property Verdure owned in Hamilton Township. "

Full post as published by New York Attorney Malpractice Blog on March 21, 2008 (boomark / email).