Wright

In this appeal from a judgment on respondent’s-defendant’s motion pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 631.8 entered in plaintiffs’-appellants’ action for legal malpractice, appellants contend that the trial court applied an overly restricted standard of duty owed by respondent to appellants. We conclude that appellants having failed to offer expert testimony defining the standard of duty owed by respondent in the performance by him of a highly specialized legal service or that respondent failed to perform as a reasonably prudent specialist in his field, appellants’ did not sustain their burden of proof in the trial court. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment.

We recite the record in the light most favorable to the findings of fact of the trial court, accepting its resolution of conflicts in the evidence. In that light, the record discloses the following. Early in 1969, appellants Dr. Rogers H. Wright and Dr. Alan J. Glasser, both practicing psychologists, and Samuel Lecocq, the owner of a chain of skin diving supply houses, decided to form a business offering cruises in Southern California waters to skin divers. They sought a vessel adequate for that purpose. In…