Legal Malpractice

Politics, Attorneys and Legal Malpractice

By (Andrew Lavoott Bluestone)

Do politics play a part in justice?  Often clients believe that a judge is biased either for them or against them.  At times the client ascribes that bias to politics.

Attorneys make large contributions to judicial campaigns.  A recent article in the NYLJ described one upstate powerhouse law firm which routinely made contributions of $ 10,000 or more to judicial campaigns.

Here is a story from the Gale Group, by Henry Gottlieb  via the New Jersey Law Journal which outlines plaintiff's suggestion that a defense firm obtained a defense personal injury case on the basis of politics, and then committed legal malpractice.

"In a rare malpractice complaint against a defense firm, an insurer charges that Cleary, Alfieri & Jones obtained a personal injury case against Monmouth County through political connections and botched it, causing a $250,000 loss.

North River Insurance Co. is suing the Matawan firm and PMA Management Group, the third-party administrator of Monmouth County's self-insurance program. The county settled the underlying case for $450,000 and paid $200,000 of it, leaving excess carrier North River with a bill for the remainder.

Among the defendants is Caroline Casagrande, a former Cleary, Alfieri lawyer who is now a first-term Republican assemblywoman from Monmouth County.The case has been under way in Morris County for a year without publicity, but politically charged questions are now bubbling to the surface: Did the firm obtain the work through political connections? Was it incapable of doing the work or unwilling to do a good job because it was getting a flat rate? And if any of that is true, is it relevant to the malpractice claim?

The insurance company's lawyer, William Voorhees, who has a firm in Morristown, subpoenaed name partner James Cleary for a Sept. 18 deposition and told him to bring documents about political contributions, county contracts and governmental appointments of lawyers in the firm.

Cleary has been an assistant county counsel and counsel to the Western Monmouth Utilities Authority. "

Full post as published by New York Attorney Malpractice Blog on November 04, 2008 (boomark / email).