Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

In a legal malpractice case your damages are what you should have recovered in the underlying lawsuit. As a general proposition, it seems like you would have been able to claim pre-judgment interest in the investment lawsuit (assuming that you could have won that suit). Interest is ordinarily due from the date money should have been returned to you and from these facts it is unclear whether that is the date you made the investment or some later date

To prevail you must prove that the attorney committed malpractice; that you would have won the underlying lawsuit and that whatever you would have won would have been collectible. You have to be able to jump through all three hoops to prevail. Good luck.

In addition to what Mr. Feldman says, in my experience, motions for summary judgment are usually lost on the paperwork presented and not -- usually -- whether or not the attorney appears to argue at the hearing. Many courts issue tentative rulings a day or two prior to the hearing. Since you were the plaintiff, either your attorney had not filed an opposition to the motion for summary judgment, or it is likely that your evidence was insufficient to meet your burden of proof.

Both answers above are entirely correct, but I would just like to add a little more information.

Usually an award of interest in only form the date the amount due to you is certain. So you can not collect interest unclear it is clear what you would have gotten from investment. If it was an investment in which the principle was supposed to be safe and the only question might be how much interest you would earn, the you should be able to get interest on that principle [or if the interest was a set amount then it was immediately "an amount certain." But you might not be able to collect both the interest promised and interest on the original investment as then you are getting more than your damages.

You should find out if the attorney has malpractice insurance; he may not have much in the way of assets. If he was part of a law firm then the firm might also have liability.

Mr. Cohen is correct that the case was probably lost before the attorney failed to appear at the hearing. Most times the judge has made up his mind and normally will not change his mind from the tentative ruling he already made. And usually a plaintiff will not have his case thrown out on summary judgment motion. That the motion was heard 4 years after suit was filed means either there was a large amount of discovery done or very little, as most cases are not dismissed on summary judgment motions.

Unless you are looking for a quick, low value settlement, you do need to hire an attorney as this wil not be an easy case to prove all the needed elements.

You need to speak to an attorney. All three of the previous posts missed a vital issue. Malpractice lawsuits are different than ordinary negligence lawsuits, in that you are suing a professional and the standard of care is defined by other professionals. In a regular negligence action, the jury itself determines the standard of care based on a "reasonable person" standard.

This means that you HAVE to have an attorney testify as an expert on your behalf as to what the standard of practice is for attorneys. You cannot simply file a malpractice action against an attorney and hope that the jury is sympathetic to your situation, because you won't ever get to a jury.

So you need to speak to an attorney, to determine whether you even have a case, before you run off and file papers on your own and risk subjecting yourself to more problems stemming from ill advised litigation.