Judge implores attorneys in legal malpractice case to hurry

LOS ANGELES — With a legal malpractice trial in its fourth week, and continued acrimonious cross-examination of the disbarred British plaintiff, a superior court judge implored attorneys Tuesday to hurry their cases along.

“I’ve given you a very generous amount of time,” Judge Terry A. Green said outside the presence of the jury, adding he would be loath to grant more time. Earlier in the trial he expressed concerns about losing jurors.

The plaintiff, a former British solicitor, has accused Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP of misleading him about its expertise and overcharging him when he sought representation to sue the British tabloid whose articles led to his disbarment. Shahrokh Mireskandari v. Edwards Wildman Palmer, BC517799 (L.A. Sup. Ct., Filed Aug. 9, 2013).

But defense attorney John M. Moscarino of Valle Makoff LLP spent much of Tuesday’s cross examination going over plaintiff Shahrokh Mireskandari’s lawsuits against other legal firms and his troubles with the British bar authority.

The combative plaintiff-witness, who has previously testified the British authority and its affiliates had a vendetta against him, stated at one point Tuesday, “Even if God came to testify for me, they were going to shut me down in any event.”

Moscarino, who has had testy exchanges with the witness, urged him Tuesday to testify to his entry of a no contest plea as part of a later-expunged telemarketing fraud conviction in California for which he agreed to a refund policy for affected consumers. Mireskandari also testified about his racketeeering case against The Law Society of England and Wales, an adjacent legal body to the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the agency that governs the British legal profession. He said that case was mishandled by a previous attorney.

“You will hear from my new lawyers as to the way forward with the transition of the cases,” Mireskandari said in an email to his then-attorney Breton Bocchieri, who worked at Seyfarth Shaw LLP at the time.

The email was presented as evidence in the current trial as Moscarino pursued the theme of Mireskandari repeatedly becoming upset with his attorneys.

Mireskandari was disbarred in Britain after the Daily Mail ran a series of 2008 stories alleging he fabricated legal qualifications and hidden criminal convictions.

He sued Edwards Wildman Palmer, alleging the firm breached its fiduciary duty toward him in his libel suit that eventually shifted into an invasion of privacy case against the Daily Mail.

Green, continuing a practice he has maintained throughout the case regarding evidence derived from the British press and court system, instructed the jury, “We shouldn’t assume this is true or false, right or wrong.”

In a post-proceedings meeting with attorneys on Monday, without the presence of the jury, Green wondered aloud, “I don’t know why he would have the incentive to create it,” commenting on the ensuing chaos Mireskandari kicked up in hiring so many law firms that went on to contradict and work against each other.

The plaintiff’s attorney, Becky S. James of James & Associates, in her redirect returned to the core time frame of Mireskandari’s interactions with Edwards Wildman.

James prompted her client to recount previously addressed issues about mounting fees related to anti-SLAPP aspects of his case that he believed Edwards Wildman Palmer mishandled. He has said the firm did not anticipate a newspaper would file an anti-SLAPP motion, and when it did, attempted to charge him an additional $60,000 more, on top of its first estimate for the whole case, just to handle that matter.