Law Firms
Malpractice Suit Claims Morgan Lewis Failed to Quickly Admit Patent Goof
Posted May 28, 2008, 04:50 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
A lawsuit filed last week against Morgan Lewis & Bockius and one of its partners claims the partner made mistakes in a patent application and then waited too long to admit it.
The suit by billboard maker Landmark Screens claims San Francisco partner Thomas Kohler and the law firm learned the patent application had been denied in December 2004 but waited until March 2005 to reveal it, the Recorder reports.
Kohler had first worked on the patent application while at Pennie & Edmonds, the suit says. The law firm was acquired by Morgan Lewis in 2003, and Kohler continued work on the patent at the new firm, according to the story.
Pennie & Edmonds has already settled a separate lawsuit during arbitration.
Legal ethics expert Diane Karpman said there isn’t a hard-and-fast rule regarding how quickly lawyers must own up to mistakes. She told the publication that lawyers do have some time to try to fix a problem before telling a client about it.