Delaney v. Dickey, ___ N.J. ___ (2020). Justice Albin’s opinion for a unanimous Supreme Court in this case today is an important one for attorneys and their clients. The Court held that if an attorney includes in a retainer agreement a provision that legal malpractice claims must proceed in arbitration rather than in court, the attorney “must generally explain to a client the benefits and disadvantages of arbitrating a prospective dispute between the attorney and client. Such an explanation is necessary because, to make an informed decision, the client must have a basic...

Supreme Court grants of leave to appeal are infrequent, but the Court’s latest wave of five new cases taken up for review includes three appeals on leave. All of those are criminal matters. The two other newly accepted cases, in which the Court granted certification, are civil appeals. Two of the matters in which leave to appeal was granted are connected. The first is State v. Molchor, which itself involves two consolidated cases. The question presented there, as phrased by the Supreme Court Clerk’s office, is “Under the Criminal Justice Reform Act, N.J.S.A. 2A:162-15 to...

MZM Construction Co., Inc. v. New Jersey Building Laborers Statewide Benefit Funds, ___ F.3d ___ (3d Cir. 2020). Decisions about arbitration just keep on coming, from both New Jersey and federal courts. This latest opinion, by Judge Restrepo, addresses what he called (quoting a law review article) “‘the queen of all threshold issues’ in arbitration law”: who decides ‘whether an agreement exists, when the putative agreement includes an arbitration provision empowering an arbitrator to decide whether an agreement exists?” Judge Restrepo rightly referred to...