Lawyer malpractice cases, usually handled in state courts, rarely find their way onto the docket of the U.S. Supreme Court.
But the high court on Jan. 16 took up a Texas legal malpractice case not to decide if the lawyers involved really messed up, but rather to determine whether it should have been litigated before state court or federal court. The reason for the uncertainty is that the alleged malpractice occurred during a patent infringement case, and patent issues are the province of federal courts.
