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Professional Liability

The growth, tenacity and creativity of the plaintiffs' bar has ushered in a new wave of matters sounding in professional liability. To meet the needs of our clients, Marshall Dennehey Warner Coleman & Goggin has responded with a team of lawyers devoted exclusively to defending professionals. Our professional liability practice is broad-based and includes many senior attorneys who have significant experience in the defense of large exposure, politically-sensitive and complex cases. An analysis committee examines each case to ensure its proper assignment within our group.
 
Our Professional Liability Practice Group services a broad client base, including, but not limited to:

  • Abstractors
  • Accountants
  • Actuaries
  • Architects
  • Brokers/Dealers
  • Clergy
  • Debt collectors
  • Engineers
  • Financial planners
  • Financial professionals
  • Financial services outsourcing solution providers
  • Information technology advisors
  • Insurance brokers/agents
  • Investment advisors
  • Investment professionals
  • Lawyers
  • Mediators
  • Mortgage brokers
  • Mutual fund and hedge fund administrators
  • Private trust companies
  • Real estate agents and brokers
  • Stockbrokers
  • Title agents
  • Travel agents

 
We also defend fiduciary liability matters, corporate directors and officers, and ERISA claims. In addition to professional liability matters before state and federal courts, we defend financial planners, investment professionals, and brokers and broker-dealers before self-regulatory organizations (SROs). We also handle securities arbitration claims before FINRA, AAA and other SROs. In addition, the group litigates commercial matters including employment disputes, trade secrets, bank litigation, and surety, fidelity and performance bonds.
 
Our offices are centrally linked by state-of-the-art computer networking. Our clients realize added value from our extensive network of offices: travel time is sharply reduced and the attorneys working out of these offices and living in these respective areas are intimately familiar with local practice and enjoy a good rapport with the judges before whom they frequently appear.
 
Recognizing the need for a cost-effective approach to the defense of professionals, our firm is dedicated to providing our clients with quality, timely and economical service. We are on the cutting edge in developing innovative and alternative billing practices.
 
The Professional Liability Practice Group serves clients in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, Ft. Lauderdale and communities throughout Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Ohio, Florida and New York.
 
We would welcome the opportunity to work with you in handling your professional liability litigation. We are also available to conduct presentations or training seminars at your location, or at one of our eighteen offices. 

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May 16, 2013
Case dismissed on summary judgement. The key issue was whether an insurance company, having settled a legal malpractice claim by paying $1.5 million, could then seek contribution from the same client's previous lawyers, asserting that errors by...
May 16, 2013
Middle District Court concludes that a writ of execution upon a bank account used to satisfy a judgment, and issued pursuant to New Jersey substantive law, is not a "legal action on a debt against a consumer" for purposes of the FDCPA...
May 16, 2013
We prevailed in defending a defamation claim brought by a builder/developer against an attorney arising out of an underlying Chancery Division action. We obtained summary judgment and dismissal of the defamation claim in the trial court and obtained...
Sep 1, 2012
We obtained a ruling from the Pennsylvania Superior Court affirming a defense verdict we obtained defending an attorney in a defamation case. The attorney was sued by two physicians, who alleged he defamed them through letters written to the FDA...
Jun 1, 2012
We won decisive battles in a legal malpractice case that generated a significant and precedentails opinion from the Pennsylvania Superior Court. In the first battle at trial, we persuaded the trial judge to dismiss one of the two plaintiffs as...
Apr 1, 2012
We obtained dismissal of all claims against our corporate director client in a multi-million dollar D&O liability case brought by the Chapter 7 bankruptcy trustee against all directors of a bankrupt corporation, as well as its affiliate entities...
Jan 1, 2012
We obtained summary judgment on behalf of our clients, a lawyer and law firm, in a complex legal malpractice case involving multiple underlying parties and cases. We persuaded the court that our clients were not jointly liable in negligence with the...
Sep 26, 2011
Attorney successfully obtained affirmance of a unanimous defense verdict that she secured on behalf of a contract security company in a negligent security/medical malpractice wrongful death case. The Appellate Division agreed that the trial court's...
Sep 8, 2011
Attorneys obtained summary judgment in a legal malpractice action. Plaintiff had been an police officer for a railroad company who was involved in an automobile accident while on the job. With the assistance of his attorneys, our clients,...
Jul 18, 2011
Attorney obtained judgment on the pleadings in a professional negligence claim in which the plaintiff alleged that our client used a fraudulently obtained power of attorney to facilitate the sale of real property owned by the plaintiff. The Court...

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Law Alerts October 1, 2012
The plaintiffs Mabel and Cris Smith, mother and son, filed a professional negligence claim against two lawyers, Gerald Morrison and Scott Morrison, claiming that the attorneys breached their fiduciary duties to Mabel and Cris by simultaneously..., Case Law Alert - 4th Qtr 2012
Law Alerts April 1, 2012
The plaintiff resolved a property dispute with her ex-husband and entered into a settlement agreement with a reservation of rights to sue her former attorney for legal malpractice. In placing the settlement on the record, the plaintiff stated that..., Case Law Alert - 2nd Qtr 2012
Law Alerts April 1, 2012
After the commercial condominium suffered flood damage when a pipe burst in the building's air conditioning system, the Association passed a special assessment to pay for flood damage repairs and cleaning of the air conditioning system's..., Case Law Alert - 2nd Qtr 2012
Law Alerts April 1, 2012
Unlike res judicata, which applies to subsequent actions between the same parties on the same cause of action, the law of the case doctrine is triggered when successive appeals are taken in the same case. The law of the case doctrine holds that the..., Case Law Alert - 2nd Qtr 2012
Defense Digest Article March 1, 2012
Maryland – Civil Practice/Assumption of the Risk Key Points: Maryland’s highest court has overturned past precedent concerning application of the defense of assumption of the risk to snow and ice slip and fall cases....
Defense Digest Article March 1, 2012
Florida – Professional Liability Key Points: Florida’s Third District held that professionals could not, as a matter of law, contractually limit their liability for professional services. Accordingly, Florida...
Law Alerts January 1, 2012
The issue in this appeal is whether the Correctional Medical Services ("CMS") is an entity entitled to the protection of the Affidavit of Merit statute ("AOM statute"). The plaintiff filed AOM for the individual doctors but not..., Case Law Alert - 1st Qtr 2012
Law Alerts January 1, 2012
Typically, the measure of damages for breach of contract claims includes consequential damages to the extent such damages were reasonably foreseeable and contemplated by the parties at the time the contract was entered into. The trial court in this..., Case Law Alert - 1st Qtr 2012
Defense Digest Article December 1, 2011
Pennsylvania – Attorney Liability , Key Points: Liability for aiding and abetting a breach of a fiduciary duty has never been imposed on an attorney in Pennsylvania who merely provided legal representation to his client. Pennsylvania courts have not expressly precluded..., Defense Digest, Vol. 17, No. 4, December 2011
Law Alerts October 1, 2011
In July 2003, La Costa Beach Resort Condominium Association, Inc. (La Costa) brought suit against three directors of the timeshare condominium for breach of fiduciary duty. After the verdict, the directors moved for a new trial and brought a..., Case Law Alert - 4th Qtr 2011

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Chair

Christopher E. Dougherty
Director - Professional Liability Department
(215) 575-2733
cedougherty@mdwcg.com

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