Nemecek & Cole

Started with humble aspirations, Sherman Oaks boutique Nemecek & Cole has evolved into
a highly-regarded, professional liability and business litigation firm, based on the
legal prowess and expertise of its attorneys.

The firm has distinguished itself from other boutiques by its vast reservoir of institutional
knowledge in the professional liability area.

"We've dealt with so many legal malpractice cases that there are very few issues we
haven't seen before," partner David B. Owen said. "We know the law as well or better
than any attorneys, and usually much better than our opposing counsel."

Steven A. Mindel, name partner at Feinberg, Mindel, Brandt & Klein LLP, who has worked
with and against Nemecek & Cole for 25 years on a variety of cases, commended the
attorneys for their empathy and grace.

"They are super knowledgeable, compassionate and nonjudgmental about their clients,"
he said. "Since a lot of their work is malpractice defense work, they approach situations
in a very business-like manner. They try to achieve settlement and resolution. And
if [they can't], they're gracious litigators."

Jonathan B. Cole and Frank W. Nemecek started the firm in 1984, with the simple goal
of providing for their families, Cole said. The two had worked together on-and-off
since 1976.

"We didn't have any vision at that time to be a professional liability defense firm,"
Cole said.

The firm started with the two name partners and now has 10 partners. Nemecek and Cole's
somewhat opposite personalities - like oil and water - may flummox some people, Cole
said, but this dynamic chemistry is one of the ingredients to their success.

"We bounce a lot of things off of each other and always have," Cole said. "That's
a huge benefit of being part of a team."

Defending lawyers is not easy, Cole acknowledged, "because you're always going to
be second-guessed and placed in a situation where you're dealing with lawyers that
know what's best for them versus what we believe."

But their finesse in serving the insurance carriers they deal with, as well as their
legal clients, has catapulted them into the highest echelon of professional liability
defense work.

"The biggest challenge is getting the [insurance] carriers to know and have confidence
in us," Cole said. "Your name has to be respected and ours is highly respected. We've
distinguished ourselves by being no-nonsense, mean and lean."

One recent example of a case where the firm prevailed was in its defense against a
legal malpractice claim arising out of a divorce settlement, Namikas v. Miller, 225 Cal.App.4th 1574 (Cal.App.2d Dist. April 14, 2014). The plaintiff sued, alleging
that he had to pay excessive spousal support due to his attorney's perceived failure
to obtain proper expert analysis. Nemecek & Cole filed a motion for summary judgment
on the grounds that there was no proof that the plaintiff's ex-wife would have agreed
to less than the court-ordered monthly payment. In granting summary judgment, the
trial court determined that without any evidence that Nakimas's ex-wife would have
accepted lower support payments, the plaintiff could not establish any connection
between the attorney's alleged error and his claimed damages, where were in the hundreds
of thousands of dollars.

In cases like this, the firm's strategy is to attack the basic elements of the claim
- which in this case was causation - undercutting the claim itself, according to partner
Michael McCarthy.

Nemecek & Cole has also made its mark on case law over the decades, as its appellate
department has more than 46 published decisions since the firm started, in areas including
legal malpractice and employment. One example is the firm's repeated victories in
anti-SLAPP [malicious prosecution] litigation. The firm has experienced an approximate
80 percent success rate on these cases.

- DEIRDRE NEWMAN