Litigants, take heed: If you’re not happy with your attorney’s performance, you may want to be careful about how you express your dissatisfaction.

Steven Sladkus, a founding partner at Schwartz Sladkus Reich Greenberg Atlas, is pursuing a defamation and slander suit against a former client who is suing him for legal malpractice and who allegedly told his business partner in a face-to-face conversation that Sladkus is a “shitty lawyer” who gives bad advice, among other negative comments.