First Pacific Corp. v. Carney & Brothers, et. al.

Outcome: Verdict for Plaintiff

Description: Complex legal malpractice case involving intepretation of state collection agency law, statutes of limitation and statutes of repose. Our client received bad advice from a nationally renowned law firm regarding the content of certain of its contracts and its business model. Specifically, our client was advised that it was not a collection agency under IL law and did not need to comply with the requirements of the state Collection Agency Act, including obtaining a license. When our client, through other lawyers, sought to sue on one of its contracts, it lost because the Court found it was operating as an unlicensed collection agency and its contract was unenforceable pursuant to state law. The attorneys then handling the case failed to promptly file suit before expiration of the statute of repose against the lawyers and firm who provided the intial bad advice. We proved 1) the advice received intially was the result of negligence by the first firm; 2) had the first firm given good advice, our client would have prevailed in its lawsuit on its contract; 3) the second firm was negligent in failing to file suit or negotiate a tolling agreement before expiration of the statute of repose; and 4) our client incurred $365,286.28 in damages - reflecting the recoverable damages from the breach of contract as well as the attorneys fees paid to the two law firms for their negligent work.