Cook County Court Grants Summary Judgment in Legal Malpractice Case

Tom Underwood successfully defended an attorney and law firm in a legal malpractice action brought by a former legal partner of the defendant attorney's wife. The attorney had represented his wife in her suit against her former legal partners to dissolve their law firm and obtain her share of the firm's revenue. After dismissing the plaintiff's claims for malicious prosecution and abuse of process, the court entered summary judgment for the defendants on the plaintiff's allegations of a breach of fiduciary duty. The court found that even if one assumed the defendants owed a fiduciary duty to the plaintiff, the plaintiff could not show that the defendants had proximately caused the plaintiff to incur damages, as the plaintiff would have incurred the same legal fees in defending the dissolution action regardless of who represented the defendant attorney's wife.