Just because an expert says something is so doesn’t mean that it is. That’s the lesson of Judge Gale’s ruling last week in Carter v. Clements Walker, 2014 NCBC 1. He rejected the evidentiary value of an expert’s report stating that Plaintiff’s damages were $33 million, saying that it was insufficient to create a
“Common Interest” Privilege Considered By The NC Business Court
How much of an ownership interest does a parent have to have in a subsidiary for the attorney-client privilege to extend to communications between the susidiary and the lawyer for the parent company?
Judge Gale pondered that question in SCR-Tech v. Evonik Energy Services LLC, 2013 NCBC 42, and wrote on a clean slate
There’s No Attorney-Client Privilege For The Communication Of Facts
It’s been nearly ten years since the North Carolina Supreme Court decided a case involving the attorney-client privilege. That case was In re Miller, 357 N.C. 316, 584 S.E.2d 772 (2003), which raised the question whether the privilege survives the death of the client. (It does.)
That case, which involved a criminal investigation, raised
Claims For Legal Malpractice Aren’t Assignable In North Carolina
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Maybe you’ve wondered whether a claim for legal malpractice can be assigned. Maybe you haven’t. But yesterday, the North Carolina Court of Appeals answered that question. In Revolutionary Concepts, Inc. v. Clements Walker PLLC, the Court held that "malpractice claims are not assignable in North Carolina." Op. at 10.
Why not? A cascade of
When Law Firms Dissolve: Dividing Up The Proceeds From Contingent Fee Cases
The Court of Appeals in February 2011 ordered Judge Jolly to dissolve Mitchell, Brewer, Richardson, Adams, Burge & Boughman, a law firm organized as a member-managed professional limited liability company. The dissolution was ordered per N.C. Gen. Stat. §57C-6-02, which authorizes judicial dissolution when the managers of the LLC are deadlocked "in the management
Another Disqualification Motion In The Business Court
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The efforts to disqualify Defendants’ counsel were unsuccessful in Atkinson v. Lackey. In denying the motion to disqualify this week, Judge Murphy gave some insight on Rule 1.9 of the Revised Rules of Professional Conduct.
Rule 1.9 is titled "Duties to Former Clients." It says that:
A lawyer who has formerly represented a client
Ethics And Email, From The NC State Bar
The intersection of technology and the rules of ethics continues to develop. The NC State Bar has proposed a new FEO (2012 Formal Ethics Opinion 5), which deals with the interesting question of the attorney-client privilege of an employee’s emails to her personal lawyer that are on her employer’s email system.
If Your
Legalzoom Strikes Out In Declaratory Judgment Action Against NC State Bar
Sometimes you have a hard time telling who won and who lost a motion ruling. That’s true of Judge Gale’s ruling on Monday in Legalzoom, Inc. v. The North Carolina State Bar, 2012 NCBC 47.
You are all undoubtedly familiar with Legalzoom, an on-line purveyor of do it yourself legal documents. This isn’t the
Lawyer Who Might Be Called As Witness Not Disqualified
If you are making a motion to disqualify opposing counsel before Judge Murphy in the Business Court, his decision yesterday in McKee v. James is likely to be of concern. He not only denied the Motion, but he dropped a few nuggets along the way which the party opposing the motion in your case may
What NOT To Do When Your Witness Goes South At Trial
If you’ve tried cases, you’ve probably had your own witnesses — who you thought were solid — disintegrate in front of you at trial. They start acting quirky, begin conceding important points on direct examination they had held on to at their depositions, and are still facing cross-examination.
What do you do? I can tell