Legal Malpractice

A Most Tangled Web of Legal Malpractice and Real Estate

By (Andrew Lavoott Bluestone)

Plaintiff owns property, plaintiff borrows money on property, plaintiff and lender reach a complicated right of first refusal agreement, lender and plaintiff enter into new lending agreements for different businesses, and then it all falls apart.  The transactions end in mutual law suits in Nassau and Suffolk and a legal malpractice and Judiciary Law 487 case before Justice Cohalan, in Suffolk County. In Rozen v. Russ & Russ we see not only Legal Malpractice and Judiciary Law 487 claims, but debtor-creditor and Champerty under Judiciary Law 488 and 489.  When we see Champerty claims we think Marbury v. Madison, our own way of saying, wow, what an uncommon pleading. Remembering, however, the 750 year + history of Judiciary Law 487, this should not surprise.

In this case, the law firm took an assignment of plaintiff's rights to the property, in a most complicated fashion, triggering law suits in two counties when defendants found out that plaintiff's law firm had in interest in how the real property case, with its rights of first refusal came out.

it is instructive to read Justice Cohalan's 15 pp decision, which is linked but cannot be excerpted here.

Full post as published by New York Attorney Malpractice Blog on March 12, 2009 (boomark / email).