Legal Malpractice

The Rare Immigration Legal Malpractice Case

By (Andrew Lavoott Bluestone)

Legal Malpractice and immigration cases are a rare fit.  Practitioners in legal malpractice get lots of calls about immigration malpractice, but the elements and the parties rarely line up.  Often if there is a good liability case, the client is no longer in the US.  If the client is available, there is little evidence of actually out-of pocket loss.  If the client is available, and there is proof of loss, then liability is a mixed issue.  Here, in Jansz v Meyers, 2010 NYSlipOp 30781, we see all three line up.

Plaintiff is an Australian citizen, and an attorney.  She was here legally on a H1-B visa.  She wanted to switch jobs, and hired the defendant attorney to handle the transition and visa renewal. He failed to file the visa application, and she lost her visa.  Able to remain in the US, but unable to leave and return, she made applications for hardship exemptions.  Here the attorney wrote that the client placed her trust in him, and he "failed her miserably" and that none of this was her fault.  The hardship request failed. 

In the ensuing legal malpractice law suit, the attorney, of course backtracked, and said that he wrote the material for her hardship application merely out of the goodness of his heart, and that it was indeed her fault.  Justice Solomon found for plaintiff on summary judgment.

Full post as published by New York Attorney Malpractice Blog on April 14, 2010 (boomark / email).