UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 11-2225

MATTHEW J. SHORTT,

Plaintiff - Appellant,

v.

IMMIGRATION REFORM LAW INSTITUTE, IRLI; SHARMA HAMMOND, Esq.,

Defendants - Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern 

District of Virginia, at Alexandria. Claude M. Hilton, Senior 

District Judge. (1:11-cv-00144-CMH-TCB)

Submitted: April 18, 2012 Decided: May 8, 2012

Before NIEMEYER, MOTZ, and KING, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Matthew J. Shortt, Appellant Pro Se. William Leonard Mitchell, 

II, Tracie Noelle Wesner, ECCLESTON & WOLF, PC, Fairfax, 

Virginia, for Appellees.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:

Matthew J. Shortt appeals the district court’s order 

granting summary judgment to Defendants in his legal malpractice 

action. We affirm.

This court reviews de novo a district court’s order 

granting summary judgment, viewing the facts and drawing 

reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to 

the non-moving party. Bonds v. Leavitt, 629 F.3d 369, 380 (4th 

Cir. 2011). Summary judgment may be granted only when “there is 

no genuine issue as to any material fact and the movant is 

entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 

56(a); see also Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322 

(1986). “[T]here is no issue for trial unless there is 

sufficient evidence favoring the nonmoving party for a jury to 

return a verdict for that party.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, 

Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 249 (1986). For a non-moving party to 

present a genuine issue of material fact, “[c]onclusory or 

speculative allegations do not suffice, nor does a mere 

scintilla of evidence in support of [the non-moving party’s] 

case.” Thompson v. Potomac Elec. Power Co., 312 F.3d 645, 649 

(4th Cir. 2002) (internal quotation marks omitted).

Because neither party quarrels with the district 

court’s decision to apply the substantive law of Virginia, we 

will do the same. A successful Virginia legal malpractice 
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plaintiff must demonstrate: (1) the existence of an attorneyclient relationship creating a duty; (2) a breach of that duty 

by the attorney; and (3) damages that were proximately caused by 

the attorney’s breach of duty. Williams v. Joynes, 677 S.E.2d 

261, 264 (Va. 2009).

Shortt first contends that the district court erred in 

finding that his failure to set forth expert testimony was fatal 

to his claim. Shortt supports his argument with little 

authority beyond his own astonishment that a court could find 

otherwise. Virginia law, however, requires expert testimony in 

all but the most flagrant of professional malpractice cases: 

“Unless a malpractice case turns upon matters within the common 

knowledge of laymen, expert testimony is required to establish 

the appropriate professional standard, to establish a deviation 

from that standard, and to establish that such a deviation was 

the proximate cause of the claimed damages.” Seaward Int’l, 

Inc. v. Price Waterhouse, 391 S.E.2d 283, 287 (Va. 1990) 

(internal citations omitted); see also Lyle, Siegel, Croshaw & 

Beale, P.C. v. Tidewater Capital Corp., 457 S.E.2d 28, 33 (Va. 

1995) (expert testimony generally required to establish standard 

of care in “highly technical professions” such as law).

We do not find that Shortt’s malpractice claims fall 

within the narrow class of straightforward malpractice claims 

exempted from expert testimony. Cf. Polyzos v. Cotrupi, 563 
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S.E.2d 775, 778 (Va. 2002) (expert testimony not needed to 

demonstrate realtor’s negligence in offering to sell property 

that he had not been authorized to sell); Easterling v. Walton, 

156 S.E.2d 787, 791 (Va. 1967) (“The inadvertent failure of 

defendant to remove the [surgical tool] from plaintiff’s 

abdominal cavity before closing the operation wound constitutes 

such an act or omission in the performance of the duty owed to 

plaintiff that a layman could infer negligence without the aid 

of expert testimony.”). The measure of proper attorney 

performance in an administrative adjudication and the duty of an 

attorney to advise her client with regard to the scope of her 

representation are somewhat more nuanced than a surgeon sewing 

up a patient with a surgical tool still inside.

As an alternative basis for summary judgment, the 

district court found that any negligence of the Defendants 

caused no injury to Shortt’s underlying legal claims because his 

claims lacked legal merit. Although Shortt broadly derides the 

Defendants’ handling of his underlying claims in his opening 

brief, he fails to educate us on how his claims could have been 

successfully prosecuted. Even granting Shortt’s opening brief 

the benefit of a liberal construction, we find little more than 

Shortt’s conclusory supposition that the district court erred 

and an invitation for us to comb through the record to uncover 

the error. In short, Shortt’s opening brief fails to 
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sufficiently identify legal error with the district court’s 

order.

Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s grant of 

summary judgment. We dispense with oral argument because the 

facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the 

materials before the court and argument would not aid the 

decisional process.

AFFIRMED