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Expert's 15-Minute Stint for Opponent Gets Law Firm Booted from $3.5M Case

By Martha Neil

May 1, 2010, 12:31 am CDT

Because a defense expert retained by a New Jersey law firm consulted for 15 minutes in 2007 with the plaintiff’s expert, before suit was filed in a legal malpractice matter, Bressler, Amery & Ross is conflicted out of continuing to represent the defendant, a state-court judge has ruled.

The Bressler firm must also clean its files of any material related to expert Bruce Ackerman before passing the material on to the successor law firm defending Giordano Halleran & Ciesla in a $3.5 million legal malpractice claim brought by a former real estate client, reports the New Jersey Law Journal.

Ackerman left the consulting firm in which plaintiff’s expert was also a partner a month after the 15-minute stint and was retained by the Bressler firm in 2009. He says he has no recollection of the conversation, which was documented in a bill in the plaintiff’s file, the legal publication recounts.

Nonetheless, “he should have never accepted this assignment,” says Monmouth County Superior Court Judge John Mullaney in a written opinion last week. “Having done so his involvement has been tainted by the confidential information that was relayed to him and I also found that that conflict extends directly to the law firm that retained his services and secured his expert opinion.”