Dallas attorneys Jeffrey Levinger and Michael L. Jones faced off Dec. 9 before the Texas Supreme Court in a case that could affect damage awards in legal malpractice suits as well as other types of litigation.
Their arguments came in Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld v. National Development and Research Corp. and Robert E. Tang, an appeal of a jury verdict in a legal malpractice suit NDR and Tang, NDR’s owner, filed against the firm. In 2007, the 5th Court of Appeals in Dallas affirmed the judgment against Akin Gump, with the exception of $216,590 in damages that the jury awarded NDR and Tang for attorneys’ fees and expenses they allegedly paid to appeal the judgment in the underlying suit. That suit arose from NDR’s disputes with its former partners in a joint venture to build and operate power plants in China.
