Dooley v. Welch’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The question of whether services rendered by an attorney for an estate at the request of the administrator are for the benefit of the estate is not to be determined solely by the results of the services. In accepting employment to prosecute or defend an action a lawyer does not become an insurer of the success of his professional efforts. He does undertake to act with the care, industry and judgment of a lawyer of reasonable skill and capacity and as long as he so conducts himself his services are for the benefit of his client whether they result in failure or success. ‘An attorney is not liable for being in error as to a question of law upon which reasonable doubt may be entertained by well-informed lawyers; nor is he answerable for error in judgment upon points of new occurrence or of nice or doubtful construction.’ [3 Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law (2 ed.), 308.] “Where an administrator in good faith and with ordinary prudence employs a lawyer to defend an action prosecuted against the estate and the lawyer defends the case in good faith and with reasonable care and professional skill and judgment, his employment in law is for the benefit of the estate. To hold otherwise would be to place the estates of deceased persons at a great and unnecessary disadvantage, since reputable lawyers would not care to accept employment that would put them in the position of an insurer of their client’s lawsuit.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 20 Wash. 2d 740 - Tucker v. Brown