A lawsuit filed by the Catholic Diocese of Spokane against the lawyers who led it through a 2004 bankruptcy related to sex abuse lawsuits is set for a February trial, the Associated Press reported on Saturday. Bishop Blase Cupich stopped using the legal team at the Paine Hamblen law firm after he arrived in 2010. He has since pursued a malpractice complaint that accuses the firm of failing to use a strategy that could have saved the diocese millions of dollars and prevented a new round of priest sex-abuse claims. The Spokane Spokesman-Review reported Friday that the number of claims after the bankruptcy reached 230 in the past year. However, more than 150 of the 230 people who filed future claims had their cases rejected by a former federal judge tasked with reviewing them and awarding payouts.
