With football season around the corner, it’s time to remember what a magnificent waste of carbon Daniel Snyder is. He’s the sort of guy who can own the most notoriously racist caricature in sports and also fairly, yet completely unironically, accused a newspaper’s cartoon of him as “racist.” Thankfully, he’s also the sort of guy whose sheer incompetence keeps his team an also-ran, proving there is some general thrust of karma out there.
Snyder is also at the center of a $22 million legal malpractice claim against Cadwalader, alleging that the firm gave him bad advice on an investment bank’s fee during a proxy fight. The agreement supposedly capped the bank’s fees at $2 million, but the bank later challenged the agreement and managed to win $10 million.
If that sounds like a complex legal question fraught with competing interpretations — you know, the sort of high stakes, nuanced question that might lead someone to hire Cadwalader in the first place — then Cadwalader, and their attorneys from Cravath, agree with you. That’s why they argued that they should be able to call a number of esteemed legal experts to testify as to the reasonableness of Cadwalader’s conduct. Snyder’s people disagreed.
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Manhattan Supreme Court Justice O. Peter Sherwood agreed with Snyder. From New York Law Journal:
With a jury trial scheduled to start next month, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice O. Peter Sherwood said there are only two versions of the facts” regarding events 13 years ago that may have resulted in injury to Red Zone — “neither of which involve matters outside the ken of the typical juror.”
In breaking news, the “typical juror” in Sherwood’s experience is a Harvard-educated attorney. Now expert legal testimony is always dicey, coming as close as it does to usurping the judge’s role as the one who dictates the meaning of the law to the jury. But malpractice hinges on whether or not the professional performed their job reasonably, which can only be sussed out through expert professional testimony. No one’s forcing a doctor to weather a medical malpractice claim without expert testimony; why in the world would attorneys in a complex transaction not be afforded the same courtesy?
But here we are. Daniel Snyder’s going to finagle his way to success in this one, isn’t he? At least Washington’s going to tank again.
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Judge Dings Cadwalader Defense Before Legal Malpractice Trial [New York Law Journal]
Joe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.