While the First Judicial District spent $2 million in legal and investigative costs to prepare and prosecute its legal malpractice claim against its former attorneys on the Philadelphia family courthouse deal, court leaders said that recovering a net $2 million out of a $4 million settlement is a good outcome for the public.
The FJD filed the lawsuit in the autumn of 2011 because Pennsylvania Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille, as the guardian ad litem for the FJD and the liaison justice to the FJD, alleged that the court’s former lawyer, Jeffrey Rotwitt, failed to disclose to court officials that he had become a co-developer of the site of the proposed facility, an action that Castille said placed the lawyer on both sides of the deal.
