U.S. law firm's bid for sanctions in malpractice suit 'breathtaking,' says ex-client - Reuters
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(Reuters) - A former client of Steptoe & Johnson urged a Washington, D.C., judge to deny Steptoe's "breathtaking" bid for sanctions in a malpractice lawsuit the ex-client brought against the law firm last year.
Allied Fitting, in a court filing in District of Columbia Superior Court on Tuesday, said it has been "diligent, transparent and responsive" in providing records Steptoe wants to look at in the malpractice action the Houston-based industrial pipe manufacturer filed in January 2021. Allied claims Steptoe missed a U.S. trade regulatory deadline and cost the company $6 million.
Steptoe, represented by the firms Zuckerman Spaeder and Beck Redden, has denied the malpractice claim. Steptoe's attorneys contend Allied can only blame itself for its decision to pay millions of dollars in certain U.S. customs duties that it should not have paid.
In its bid seeking sanctions filed last month, the law firm accused Allied of refusing to "adequately search for and produce entire categories of documents."
"Allied wants someone to pay for its mistakes, but Steptoe is entitled to defend itself, including discovering Allied material relevant to its defenses. Allied has shown that despite repeated court intervention, it will continue to thwart Steptoe's ability to develop its defense," Zuckerman's Catherine Duval told the court in a Dec. 21 filing.
A lawyer for Allied, John Black of Houston's Daly & Black, said in an email to Reuters that Steptoe's "motion for sanctions is simply an effort to deflect attention away from the central issue in this case: that Steptoe failed to advise Allied of its rights and deadlines to act, and those failures cost Allied millions of dollars."
Steptoe's filing asked D.C. Superior Court Judge Todd Edelman "to compensate Steptoe for expenditures that should have been unnecessary." The firm accused Allied of "gamesmanship" that has "caused Steptoe to incur otherwise unnecessary legal fees."
Allied's response on Tuesday called Steptoe's push for sanctions "a breathtaking act of projecting its own discovery conduct onto its former client." Allied claimed that Steptoe has delayed producing "witnesses and evidence to support its primary defense."
The company denied it was hiding any relevant documents and said "all of the facts in the documents were well known to Steptoe and had been presented numerous times by Allied to its then lawyers at Steptoe."
The case is Allied Fitting LP v. Steptoe & Johnson LLP, D.C. Superior Court, No. 2021-CA-000227-M.
For Allied: Patrick Malone of Patrick Malone & Associates, John Black of Daly & Black
For Steptoe: Catherine Duval of Zuckerman Spaeder, David Beck of Beck Redden
source: https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/us-law-firms-bid-sanctions-malpractice-suit-breathtaking-says-ex-client-2022-01-19/
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