Practice point: To recover damages for legal malpractice, a plaintiff must establish that the attorney failed to exercise the ordinary reasonable skill and knowledge commonly possessed by a member of the legal profession, and that the breach of this duty proximately caused the plaintiff to sustain actual and ascertainable damages.
Student note: Establishing causation requires a showing that, but for the lawyer's negligence, the plaintiff would have prevailed in the underlying action, or would not have incurred any damages.
Case: Burbige v. Siben & Ferber, NY Slip Op 05704 (2d Dep't July 19, 2017)
Tomorrow's issue: In a trip-and-fall action, a trivial defect.
