Is A Negligent Attorney Entitled To A Fee in Kentucky

One of the questions I am often asked about by potenial clients that are exploring legal malpractice actions against their current or former attorneys is whether the current attorney will still be entitled to a fee if they fire the attorney.  This situation generally arises when an attorney has not handled a personal injury case properly, but the client still recovers some money (although not as much as they would have received had the attorney not been negligent) or, they attorney is hired on an hourly basis but performs negligently and the client wants to know if they are entitled to a refund of the fees they paid the negligent lawyer.
The law in most states, including Kentucky, is that a negligent lawyer is not entitled to the contractual fee if he or she is fired for cause.  In fact, Kentucky has a specific statute that entitles a client to a refund if the lawyer is negligent.  Or, to put it another way, if a lawyer is negligent, they can be sued and the fee they received becomes another element of damages.
Hans

Thirty Year Old Medical Malpractice Case is Now Legal Malpractice Case

An appellate court in New York has allowed a client to sue her lawyers over her her 30 year old medical malpractice case even though the lawyers say they fired the client 3 years before she fild her legal malpractice suit.  Generally, the statute of limitations bars a person from pursuing a claim if the suit is not timely filed.  In some states, like Kentucky, the statute doesn't start to run when the malpractice occurs, but when the attorney-client relationship terminates.  So, for example, if a lawyer failed to file your car accident case but didn't tell you for three years, the statute would be "tolled" until you learned of the malpractice (the discovery rule) and then terminated the relationship. 
They New York court determined that even though the claim was three years old, the lawyers never clearly indicated to the client that they were not going to be pursing the case.  Because the relationship was never clearly terminated, the court held that the client could go forward with her lawsuit for the lawyers failing to properly file her medical negligence suit.

Legal Malpractice of a Legal Malpractice Case?

Today the Court of Appeals of Kentucky rendered an opinion that may result in a legal malpractice case within a legal malpractice case.  In Ronald Manning and Manning Family Trust v. Wilkinson and Stoll Keenon & Ogden, 2005-CA-002491, the court of appeals affirmed the Fayette Circuit Court's dismissal of a legal malpractice case filed against the law firm of Stoll Keenon & Ogden and one of its attorneys.
The original dismissal by the trial court was based on the the failure of the attorneys to prosecute the legal malpractice case they filed against Stoll Keenon.  Kentucky has a "house keeping" rule that requires circuit court judges to dismiss cases that have been inactive for over a year (CR 77.02).  According to the appellate opinion, the circuit court issued three notices that the legal malpractice case would be dismissed unless someone started doing some work on the case.  Apparently, no one ever moved the case along and the trial court dismissed the case against Stoll Keenon.  The Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal. 
One has to now wonder if the clients will hire a lawyer to sue the lawyers that they hired to sue their other lawyers.  What a mess.