Riker Danzig LLP is one of New Jersey’s oldest and largest law firms. We have a team of lawyers experienced in the defense of professional liability claims against attorneys, accountants, insurance brokers, architects and engineers, medical billing practitioners, and other professionals. We represent professionals who have been sued for malpractice in state and federal courts in New Jersey and New York, and we are adept at litigating these cases efficiently and vigorously in order to resolve them favorably for the clients and their insurers.
Riker Danzig’s legal malpractice work includes the defense of attorneys arising from both litigation and transactional matters, and our clients range from solo practitioners to large national law firms. Our legal malpractice defense attorneys draw on the expertise of the Firm’s many specialized practice areas to efficiently defend attorneys in disputes arising from all areas of the practice of law, including real estate, matrimonial, bankruptcy, corporate, and trusts and estates matters. We also are frequently asked to defend attorneys who are sued based on their representation of a client in litigation. These cases require not only a defense of the litigation strategy undertaken by the attorney, but also require a defense of the “case-within-a-case” to determine whether the lawyer’s client would have been successful in the underlying litigation had a different strategy been employed. Our experience in representing attorneys before ethics panels, in oral argument before judges, and when necessary, in jury trials, has given us a unique perspective into the different approach that must be considered when defending attorneys in front of laypersons and the bench.
We use this same approach when defending other professionals, and call upon our expertise in more specialized areas. For instance, when representing insurance brokers, we rely on our Insurance and Reinsurance practice group for specialized knowledge that assists us in learning the details of our clients’ businesses. When representing medical billing professionals, we call on our healthcare practitioners for insight into the intricacies of medical billing practices and procedures.
We use our vast experience to assess and resolve these cases in the most cost-effective and efficient way possible. We work closely with our clients, our specially chosen experts, and employ our considerable experience in defending malpractice claims to present a compelling and often successful defense. We have been extremely successful in eliminating or reducing our clients’ exposure. We have been assigned to defend attorneys, accountants, brokers, and other professionals by Mutual Marine Office, Inc., Target Capital and Monitor Liability Managers, Inc., Allied World Insurance Company, Liberty Insurance Underwriters, Harleysville Insurance, Global Indemnity, and Zurich Insurance, among other companies.
We have been involved in many groundbreaking decisions that have helped to shape attorney malpractice law in New Jersey, including the following:
Banco Popular v. Gandhi, 184 N.J. 161 (2005)
Cherry Hill Manor Associates v. Rogan & Faugno, 182 N.J. 64 (2004)
Structure Bldg. Corp. v. Abella, 377 N.J. Super. 467 (App. Div. 2005)
Simonelli v. Chiarolanza, 355 N.J. Super. 380 (App. Div. 2002)
Kelsey v. Raymond, 2015 WL 1781565 (App. Div. Apr. 21, 2015)
Middlebrooks & Shapiro, P.C. v. Bonanno, 2010 WL 668740 (App. Div. Feb. 25, 2010)
Steiert v. Levy, Angstreich, Finney, Baldante, Rubenstein & Coren, P.C., 2010 WL 3258143 (App. Div. Aug. 13, 2010)
Results may vary depending on your particular facts and legal circumstances.
