Attorneys obtained summary judgment in a legal malpractice action

Attorneys obtained summary judgment in a legal malpractice action where the plaintiff alleged that our clients, a lawyer and his former law firm, delayed the prosecution of her underlying dental malpractice case for a period of over ten years prior to the case being dismissed on summary judgment when no expert report was produced to support her claims. Plaintiff alleged that had the defendant-attorney moved more quickly, plaintiff's then treating prosthodontist, who initially agreed to serve as expert but later retracted, would have supported her claims, or else a second dentist was otherwise available and willing to do so at the time of the case dismissal. Plaintiff attached to her Amended Complaint a comprehensive report from the second dentist-expert purporting to establish the elements of dental malpractice. Upon deposing that would-be expert, we successfully argued that the testimony of such expert would not have been sufficient for a jury to have found in plaintiff's favor in any underlying dental malpractice trial, and thus plaintiff could not prove the attorney-defendants were the proximate cause of any actual loss or harm. In particular, although the dental expert clearly disagreed with the approach utilized by the defendant dentist in treating plaintiff's temporomandibular joint disorder, the expert also testified that the treatment protocol employed by the defendant dentist was the "authoritarian" approach (and thus essentially an accepted view) taught and practiced in the relevant time period and locality in which the alleged dental malpractice had occurred. We therefore convinced the court that the proffered expert who purportedly should have been used - the second dentist-expert - could not have established that the defendant dentist in the underlying case had deviated from the accepted standard of care.