Legal malpractice is ubiquitous and pops up in any field where people need attorneys. In an action for legal malpractice, a plaintiff must demonstrate that the attorney “failed to exercise the ordinary reasonable skill and knowledge commonly possessed by a member of the legal profession” and that the attorney’s breach of this duty proximately caused plaintiff to sustain actual and ascertainable damages. McCoy v. Feinman, 99 NY2d 295, 301-302 (2002).
To establish causation, a plaintiff must show that he or she would have prevailed in the underlying action or would not have incurred any damages “but for” the lawyer’s negligence. Davis v. Klein, 88 NY2d 1008 (1996); Carmel v. Lunney, 70 NY2d 169, 173 (1987); Rudolph v. Shayne, Dachs, Stanisci, Corker & Sauer, 8 NY3d 438 (2007).
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