Legal Malpractice

A Very Strange Case of Legal Malpractice and Fees

By (Andrew Lavoott Bluestone)

Taking over a pro-se case can be dangerous, as an attorney in NJ has recently found out.  In this story from Law.Com recounts the attorney took over after a pro-se college professor started a employment discrimination law suit:

"A lawyer who prevailed in a Title VII suit three years ago has been engaged since then in an unusual fee fight: against her own client, who says his pro se work entitles him to keep the fees awarded.

Worse for the lawyer, Antonia Kousoulas, the client is asserting his right to the $144,462 in fees and interest -- now sitting in a court registry -- through a malpractice counterclaim that a federal judge on Monday refused to throw out.

The underlying suit, Kant v. Seton Hall University, 00-Civ.-5204, was filed pro se in October 2000 by Chander Kant, a tenured assistant professor of economics at Seton Hall University's Stillman School of Business. Kousoulas, who heads an eponymous New York firm, entered her appearance as Kant's lawyer the following March.

Kant, born in India, claimed national-origin discrimination in the school's failure on three occasions to promote him to full professor. He also alleged he was denied promotion in retaliation for complaining of discrimination. The discrimination claim was dismissed on summary judgment."

Full post as published by New York Attorney Malpractice Blog on April 03, 2009 (boomark / email).