When can an attorney be held liable for breach of contract?

This principle has been enunciated in the leading case of Martin v. Camp (219 N.Y. 170) wherein SEABURY, J., writing for the court, after acknowledging that a contrary rule prevails in certain other jurisdictions, states: "The contract under which an attorney is employed by a client has peculiar and distinctive features which differentiate it from ordinary contracts of employment. * * * Notwithstanding the fact that the employment of an attorney by a client is governed by the contract which the parties make, the peculiar relation of trust and confidence that such a relationship implies injects into the contract certain special and unique features. * * * These cases and many others that might appropriately be cited to the same effect establish that while so far as the attorney is concerned the contract is entire and the attorney cannot recover unless he completely performs, the client with or without cause may terminate the contract at any time. * * * If the client has the right to terminate the relationship of attorney and client at any time without cause, it follows as a corollary that the client cannot be compelled to pay damages for exercising a right which is an implied condition of the contract. If in such a case the client can be compelled to pay damages to his attorney for the breach of the contract, the contract under which a client employs an attorney would not differ from the ordinary contract of employment. In such a case the attorney may recover the reasonable value of the services which he has rendered but he cannot recover for damages for the breach of contract. The discharge of the attorney by his client does not constitute a breach of the contract, because it is a term of such contract, implied from the peculiar relationship which the contract calls

[202 Misc. 125]