Some of the largest law firms in New York are the personal injury giants Jacoby & Meyers LLP and Finkelstein & Partners.  All across upstate New York, wherever there are cars and personal injuries, you’ll find their offices.  One of the institutional problems of the personal injury world is the expense of litigation.  Smaller firms act as banks for their clients.  The firm advances court costs, medical record costs, deposition transcript costs…you get the picture.  Jacoby has its own inhouse bank, which lends money to the client.  This shifts the ultimate cost of credit to the client and away from the law firm.

Rodriguez v Jacoby & Meyers, LLP   2015 NY Slip Op 02427   Decided on March 24, 2015  Appellate Division, First Department is a case which investigates this practice.  Is it proper?  Does it violate contingent fee rules?  Is it deceit ?

The answer to deceit is no.  The balance remains unanswered.

“As to the cause of action for breach of fiduciary duty based on over-billing, the record does not permit a finding as a matter of law as to whether the expenses billed by defendants Total Trial Solutions, LLC (TTS) and Cinetrial Solutions, LLC (CTS), providers of litigation support services, were authorized and were reasonable, since issues of fact exist whether defendant Jacoby & Meyers’s guidelines for the provision of litigation support services were followed and whether TTS and CTS provided services in excess of what had been deemed necessary.

The record does not permit summary dismissal of the complaint on the ground of unclean hands since, in addition to the above-cited issues of fact as to the following of the guidelines for litigation support services, issues of fact exist as to which individual or individuals at Jacoby & Meyers were responsible for litigating the case and for reviewing and approving the litigation support services.

As to the breach of fiduciary duty claim based on a conflict of interest, the retainer agreement clearly disclosed that attorneys had a financial interest in TTS and CTS, and advised plaintiff to seek an independent attorney’s opinion on the issue of case expenses if she felt the need (see generally Halevi v Fisher, 81 AD3d 504 [1st Dept 2011], lv denied 16 NY3d 711 [2011]). Plaintiff presented no evidence either that she had difficulty with English (indeed, her[*2]deposition testimony in English reflects no such difficulty) or that her injury rendered her unable to understand the agreement she signed.

For the same reasons, plaintiff’s contention that defendants committed fraud by omission by concealing their conflict of interest from her is unavailing. Nor does the retainer agreement’s language of “potential” conflict of interest render the disclosure less clear.

As to the breach of fiduciary duty claim based on the alleged filing of an improper retaining lien, it has not been determined whether defendants were discharged for cause (see Teichner v W & J Holsteins, 64 NY2d 977 [1985]; Eighteen Assoc. v Nanjim Leasing Corp., 297 AD2d 358 [2d Dept 2002]).

There is no evidence that defendants engaged in misconduct constituting a violation of Judiciary Law § 487 (see e.g. Lifeline Funding, LLC v Ripka, 114 AD3d 507, 508 [1st Dept 2014]).”

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Andrew Lavoott Bluestone

Andrew Lavoott Bluestone has been an attorney for 40 years, with a career that spans criminal prosecution, civil litigation and appellate litigation. Mr. Bluestone became an Assistant District Attorney in Kings County in 1978, entered private practice in 1984 and in 1989 opened…

Andrew Lavoott Bluestone has been an attorney for 40 years, with a career that spans criminal prosecution, civil litigation and appellate litigation. Mr. Bluestone became an Assistant District Attorney in Kings County in 1978, entered private practice in 1984 and in 1989 opened his private law office and took his first legal malpractice case.

Since 1989, Bluestone has become a leader in the New York Plaintiff’s Legal Malpractice bar, handling a wide array of plaintiff’s legal malpractice cases arising from catastrophic personal injury, contracts, patents, commercial litigation, securities, matrimonial and custody issues, medical malpractice, insurance, product liability, real estate, landlord-tenant, foreclosures and has defended attorneys in a limited number of legal malpractice cases.

Bluestone also took an academic role in field, publishing the New York Attorney Malpractice Report from 2002-2004.  He started the “New York Attorney Malpractice Blog” in 2004, where he has published more than 4500 entries.

Mr. Bluestone has written 38 scholarly peer-reviewed articles concerning legal malpractice, many in the Outside Counsel column of the New York Law Journal. He has appeared as an Expert witness in multiple legal malpractice litigations.

Mr. Bluestone is an adjunct professor of law at St. John’s University College of Law, teaching Legal Malpractice.  Mr. Bluestone has argued legal malpractice cases in the Second Circuit, in the New York State Court of Appeals, each of the four New York Appellate Divisions, in all four of  the U.S. District Courts of New York and in Supreme Courts all over the state.  He has also been admitted pro haec vice in the states of Connecticut, New Jersey and Florida and was formally admitted to the US District Court of Connecticut and to its Bankruptcy Court all for legal malpractice matters. He has been retained by U.S. Trustees in legal malpractice cases from Bankruptcy Courts, and has represented municipalities, insurance companies, hedge funds, communications companies and international manufacturing firms. Mr. Bluestone regularly lectures in CLEs on legal malpractice.

Based upon his professional experience Bluestone was named a Diplomate and was Board Certified by the American Board of Professional Liability Attorneys in 2008 in Legal Malpractice. He remains Board Certified.  He was admitted to The Best Lawyers in America from 2012-2019.  He has been featured in Who’s Who in Law since 1993.

In the last years, Mr. Bluestone has been featured for two particularly noteworthy legal malpractice cases.  The first was a settlement of an $11.9 million dollar default legal malpractice case of Yeo v. Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman which was reported in the NYLJ on August 15, 2016. Most recently, Mr. Bluestone obtained a rare plaintiff’s verdict in a legal malpractice case on behalf of the City of White Plains v. Joseph Maria, reported in the NYLJ on February 14, 2017. It was the sole legal malpractice jury verdict in the State of New York for 2017.

Bluestone has been at the forefront of the development of legal malpractice principles and has contributed case law decisions, writing and lecturing which have been recognized by his peers.  He is regularly mentioned in academic writing, and his past cases are often cited in current legal malpractice decisions. He is recognized for his ample writings on Judiciary Law § 487, a 850 year old statute deriving from England which relates to attorney deceit.