Partner John Villa will speak on a panel entitled “The Domino Effect: Malpractice Risks Tied to Outcomes in Related Litigation” during the 25th Annual Legal Malpractice & Risk Management Conference (“LMRM”) held on March 3-5, 2026, in Chicago, Illinois. John’s panel will focus on the trend involving asserting claims against litigation counsel for adverse outcomes in high stakes litigation. It will discuss claims by clients who assert that they were not advised of the risk of an adverse outcome. It will discuss the now-standard claim that lawyers engaged in ethical misconduct by not informing clients of a “material mistake” and securing a self-interest conflict waiver even where no true mistake occurred. The panel will discuss communicating, quantifying and memorializing advice, the caselaw governing the duties and liabilities of litigation counsel and the legal principles that govern the follow-on legal malpractice claims. On each topic, the panel will discuss best practices to minimize risk.
John Villa is Co-Chair of the firm’s Financial Services and Banking practice group. He focuses on the defense of law firms in malpractice suits, and corporate, securities and financial services-related litigation. In 2024 and 2025, Chambers USA named John a “Star Individual,” the publication’s highest honor, in its first two years of USA rankings in the Law Firm Defense category, citing client reports that “John is the ultimate lawyers’ lawyer.” He has authored three treatises on the duties of corporate lawyers and corporate directors and officers, and financial crimes. He has also authored a casebook on professional responsibility for corporate lawyers and taught law school courses on that subject at Georgetown, Columbia and elsewhere. He has handled cases in more than 30 states and appeared before every federal court of appeals.
The LMRM conference is a leading conference attracting hundreds of law firm general counsel, defense counsel and insurance carriers from the U.S. and abroad. See the full LMRM conference schedule here.