BRANDON N. KRUEGER

Brandon N. Krueger is a shareholder and name partner at Sall Spencer Callas & Krueger, ALC. His practice focuses chiefly on claims by clients against their lawyers.

“We are very busy,” Krueger said. “More than most firms, we have to carefully vet our clients. A lot of people are unhappy with the result of litigation, but that doesn’t necessarily mean their lawyer has done anything wrong. We do a lot of work at the front end to avoid launching ill-founded claims.”

Krueger graduated cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center, then worked at a Los Angeles litigation boutique. There his firm partnered with Sall Spencer on a malpractice case and Krueger came to appreciate that field of practice.

“I fell in love with the level of analysis and the application of standards involved in fighting for lawyers to meet their ethical obligations,” Krueger said. “Legal malpractice cases are very hard fought and complex.”

Plus, he met firm founder Robert K. Sall. “It used to be that firms observed kind of a brotherhood mentality and wouldn’t touch claims against other attorneys,” Krueger said. “Sall was a pioneer.”

Krueger won’t name clients, but he gave as an example of an interesting and complex matter the case of a wealthy widow concerned about her wills and trusts attorney and his strategy for distributing her $4 million fortune.

“She came to us with an estate plan he had prepared that was so complicated she began to feel she was in over her head. It was confusing, with dozens of nestled LLCs, and after we analyzed it, we saw it gifted the preparing attorney millions of dollars.”

Confronted, the attorney and his firm folded without admitting guilt. “They offered her back every penny she’d paid them,” Krueger said. “She was torn between taking the money and exposing a criminal fraud.” The case reached a confidential settlement. The result of a State Bar investigation of the attorney has not been made public.

Krueger said the Thomas V. Girardi scandal has resonated. “It’s caused a huge wave within my practice area. The law entitles people to trust their attorneys. Usually, people don’t know anything might be amiss until another lawyer tips them off.

Reputationally, the profession as a whole was not too badly affected, Krueger said. “Girardi didn’t make as much of a splash as it should have, though trust in the State Bar itself is very low. Never did I believe a guy like Girardi could have hundreds of complaints and no action.”

– John Roemer