Hecht, Solberg, Robinson, Goldberg & Bagley LLP v. Superior Court

This writ proceeding presents an opportunity to outline the standards governing an important aspect of third party financial discovery in legal malpractice cases. It is well accepted that “one who establishes malpractice on the part of his attorney in prosecuting ... a lawsuit must also prove that careful management of it would have resulted in recovery of a favorable judgment and collection of same . . . .” (Campbell v. Magana (1960) 184 Cal.App.2d 751, 754 [ 8 Cal.Rptr. 32 ], italics added; see Garretson v. Harold I. Miller (2002) 99 Cal.App.4th 563, 568-569 [ 121 Cal.Rptr.2d 317 ] {Garretson).) We seek to determine to what extent financial discovery may be conducted, over privacy objections, about the ability to respond in damages (“collectibility”) of a nonparty to the particular legal malpractice action in which discovery is sought. In this case, the legal malpractice claims against the current attorney defendants are based in part on the actions or inactions of another set of plaintiff’s former attorneys in another underlying suit, and plaintiff is contending a greater recovery should have been obtained in both actions. Plaintiff is now pursuing the current attorney…