28 Cal. 4th 289 - Beck v. Wecht’s Empirical Analysis
2002
Citation profile
28
cited by 28 later decisions
5
states following
September 2011
most recently cited
28 state decisions
Relationships
Relies on Pollack v. Lytle · Mason v. Levy & Van Bourg · 74 Cal. App. 4th 869 - Saunders v. Weissburg & Aronson
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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[e]very lawyer referring a case to another lawyer would be in a position to claim that the negligence of the second lawyer caused a meritorious claim to be lost or settled for an insufficient amount. Public confidence in the legal system may be eroded by the spectacle of lawyers squabbling over the could-have-beens of a concluded lawsuit, even when the client has indicated no dissatisfaction with the outcome.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage“it would violate public policy to allow attorneys to sue each other on the theory that `cocounsel have a fiduciary duty to protect one another's prospective interests in a contingency fee.'”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“This loyalty should not be diluted by a duty owed to some other person, such as an earlier attorney. While, as a practical matter, both the client and the former attorney stand to benefit from any recovery in the client’s action, their interests are not identical. For example, in the cases transferred from plaintiff to defendants there was a cross-action against the client, Mr. Lawson. Depending on the circumstances, the client’s interests may best be served by withdrawing from the dispute and allowing the statute of limitations to run. ... It would be inconsistent with an attorney’s duty to exercise independent professional judgment on behalf of his client to impose upon him an obligation to take into account the interests of predecessor attorneys.[ 10 ]”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Mazon v. Krafchick
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.