In Nkansah v. Kleinbard, (2:19-cv-04472-TJS), the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania recently decided an important legal malpractice matter. It is no great mystery that a plaintiff must be able to prove a case-within-a-case, to prevail in an action against prior counsel for their alleged misdeeds. However, parsing out that likelihood of success in the underlying matter, and whether the alleged errors even rise to the level of legal malpractice, can be tricky business, as the Nkansah case demonstrates. Is it enough to merely say that had it not been for the errors of one’s former attorneys, the client must have suffered cognizable harm? Let’s explore the facts in Nkansah, to make sense of what the lawyers’ supposed errors were and whether the plaintiff was able to make out a viable case.

The facts in the original litigation are relatively straightforward; there is an interesting twist though. Essentially, Stephen Nkansah had committed to investing a sizeable sum in a Colombia-based juice outfit. A former work relationship with the one of the shareholders brought him to conversations about the prospect of committing $180,000, with the deal finally struck in-person, at a meeting in Philadelphia. According to Nkansah, an oral agreement had been hammered out and Nkansah was to receive a 60% equity stake in the subject company. In furtherance of the deal, he was entitled to review the company’s financials and to a full refund of the monies upon demand, presumably if he was dissatisfied with the due diligence; eventually that demand was made. Nevertheless, the shareholders refused to return the money, thereby prompting the underlying litigation.