The New York Appellate Division for the Second Judicial Department

During the plaintiff’s divorce action, she retained the defendant Kramer & Rabinowitz, LLC (hereinafter the law firm), to represent her. The defendants Lynn Adair Kramer and Gregory Rabinowitz were the members of the law firm. The law firm negotiated a stipulation of settlement between the plaintiff and her former husband wherein the former husband agreed to pay the plaintiff $300,000 as an equitable distribution award. The stipulation provided that the law firm was to prepare a deed transferring ownership of the marital residence from the former husband, who was the sole titled owner, to the plaintiff and the former husband as “joint tenants in common” as a means to secure the husband’s payment of the equitable distribution award to the plaintiff. It is undisputed that the law firm failed to prepare and record the deed, and that the former husband subsequently encumbered the marital residence with a mortgage that had priority over the plaintiff’s claim against the former husband. Thus, the plaintiff was not able to use her anticipated interest in the marital residence to satisfy the $300,000 owed to her by her former husband. The former husband failed to pay the plaintiff her equitable distribution award, and the plaintiff subsequently commenced this action against, among others, Kramer, Rabinowitz, and the law firm (hereinafter collectively the defendants), inter alia, to recover damages for legal malpractice.