While catching up on reading, I noticed National Union Fire Ins. Co. v. Wuerth (Ohio, 7/29/09), which held that a law firm cannot be liable absent proof that an agent committed malpractice, rendering the firm vicariously liable. This opinion makes a lot of sense to me, but if you impute knowledge -- as some courts have done in malpractice cases -- it makes the firm liable without proof that a single lawyer actually breached a duty to a client.
Anyhow, just following up.
I thought the commentary that this was an "unusual" holding odd -- it seems fairly basic to me, but people in the ABA Current Reports criticized it and said it would require naming individual lawyers as defendants. I don't know that that's the case at all, but what it does require is proof that a lawyer breached a duty to a client before a firm can be held vicariously liable -- just like all other principal-agent relationships...