A federal judge in Illinois declined to dismiss a legal malpractice suit against a Chicago-based law firm and an attorney for allegedly failing to argue that an underlying lawsuit was timely filed, costing the client more than $4.39 million in a loan for the construction of a Caribbean condominium complex.
In a July 29 opinion, U.S. District Judge Steven C. Seeger of the Northern District of Illinois cleared the way for the plaintiffs, Eric Hovde and Steven Hovde, to pursue a professional negligence suit against Ruff, Freud, Breems & Nelson, and its attorney, Edward D. Freud, represented by attorneys with Hinshaw & Culbertson, denying the defendants’ claims that the plaintiffs’ loan agreement didn’t function as a “new promise to pay.”
