Recent Developments In Legal Malpractice

The August 14, 2007 New York Law Journal ran an article entitled "Professional Liability Recent Cases on Allegations of Legal Malpractice" which, as its name implies, reviews recent malpractice decisions. What caught my eye was a claim that a law firm committed malpractice by pursuing a unique claim which caused plaintiff to incur large legal costs. From the article:

  Recently several courts have addressed novel issues involving allegations of legal malpractice. Ideal Steel Supply Corp., the losing party in Anza v. Ideal Steel Supply Corp.¹ filed a legal malpractice action, Ideal Steel Supply Corp. v. Beil, against McGuire Woods and one of its partners after the U.S. Supreme Court held against plaintiffs and limited all plaintiffs' ability to pursue Racketeer, Influence and Corruptions Act (RICO) claims.

In the malpractice action, Ideal Steel alleged its former attorneys committed malpractice in pursuing the "unique" and novel civil RICO claim. The court refused to dismiss the causes of actions concerning the appropriateness of the alleged exorbitant attorney's legal fees and whether the firm should have hired special RICO counsel.

I believe that the court got it wrong here. We want lawyers to be creative. It's one thing if their actions are below the standard of care and its quite another if the lawyer has to charge "exorbitant" fees to pursue a unique claim.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein