JOHN B. SULLIVAN

In 2005, John B. Sullivan joined Long & Levit LLP, a century-old firm principally engaged in defending lawyers, judges and other professionals. About 90% of Sullivan’s practice consists of representing lawyers. He is currently the chair of the San Francisco Bar Association’s legal malpractice section.

Part of the attraction is the opportunity to learn about the areas of law that underlie malpractice claims. “You get exposed to a broad range of cases, including class actions, water rights and real estate disputes, federal and state tax issues, corporate governance, public finance and catastrophic personal injuries,” Sullivan said.

“Lawyers are natural targets, and to defend them, you have to be both a generalist and a specialist. I handle litigation in state and federal courts, fee arbitrations and State Bar matters.”

There are always two layers to a malpractice case: the original matter and the lawyer’s allegedly substandard performance. “There is plenty of law governing the conduct of lawyers — probably 10 to 15 appellate opinions a year on the topics of discipline, standards and fees,” Sullivan said.

Along with malpractice claims, there are attempts to disqualify counsel, sometimes in an effort by one side in a dispute to disrupt the attorney-client relationship on the other side. “But courts are loath to chill relations between a client and a lawyer,” Sullivan said. “Absent a real conflict, courts tend to view disqualification motions as gamesmanship.”

In all matters, discretion is key. “It is our firm’s practice to not disclose names of our clients because we do not want to publicize the fact that they have been sued,” Sullivan said.

Even so, he ticked off several recent accomplishments, including his having obtained summary judgment in a malpractice case brought by a bankruptcy trustee against a large firm.

“If the prevailing plaintiff can’t collect because his litigation opponent declares bankruptcy, he can try to find otherwise unavailable assets from the firm that represented the losing side,” Sullivan said.

When the prevailing plaintiff learned the opposing law firm had represented its client and other LLCs in a separate shareholder action, the plaintiff amended the judgment to add as judgment debtors two entities the law firm had represented. The plaintiff alleged the new collection targets were among those the defendant had used to transfer money outside of the U.S. to prevent collection, Sullivan explained.

The plaintiffs then forced the LLC debtors into an involuntary bankruptcy; that’s when the trustee sued the law firm.

“We prevailed on the view that our client, the law firm, owed no duty of care to the affiliates because it had not represented them,” Sullivan said.

– John Roemer