Suder v. Whiteford, Taylor & Preston, LLP

ADKINS, Judge.

The trial-within-a-trial doctrine is unique to legal malpractice cases. The doctrine provides a mechanism we do not see elsewhere for a tribunal to resolve a proximate cause query. When the doctrine is applicable, the litigants reconstruct the underlying action, absent the supposed breach of duty. The tribunal must not only determine how the parties would have proceeded had there been no breach, but must also assume the role of the earlier adjudicator in order to ascertain the probable outcome of the action. Simply put, the court must try a case within a case.

We have previously…