A client’s assertion that his attorney’s “eagerness to get his name in the papers” caused him to lose a $1.3 million case states a claim for legal malpractice, a Manhattan appeals court ruled Thursday.

Michael Barr, a securities industry executive, said Jeffrey Liddle, a founding partner of Liddle & Robinson, gave an interview to a newspaper that, according to Barr’s former employer, breached Barr’s agreement not to make any “disparaging statements” about the employer.