Albany, NY:  The Third Department considered a pro-se appeal, and found against plaintiff. Neroni v Follender 2016 NY Slip Op 01527  Decided on March 3, 2016  Appellate Division, Third Department.  All in all, things turned out poorly for plaintiff.

“In 2007, defendant Jonathan S. Follender (hereinafter Follender) and his law firm, defendant Jonathan S. Follender, P.C. (hereinafter the law firm), commenced a breach of contract action on behalf of clients of the law firm against clients of plaintiff [FN1]. The action culminated in a default judgment against plaintiff’s clients and an award of sanctions for frivolous conduct against plaintiff; both determinations were affirmed by this Court (M & C Bros., Inc. v Torum, 101 AD3d 1329, 1330 [2012], appeal dismissed 21 NY3d 898 [2013]). Plaintiff then commenced this action against Follender, the law firm and the law firm’s clients in the breach of contract action, alleging that Follender and the law firm committed fraud upon the court in that action and a subsequent special proceeding to enforce the judgment, that the clients colluded with Follender and the law firm to commit fraud, deceit and collusion in violation of Judicial Law § 487, and that defendants committed defamation. Defendants moved [*2]to dismiss the complaint and sought sanctions and an order to preclude plaintiff from bringing further litigation against them. In December 2013, after extensive motion practice and correspondence, Supreme Court dismissed plaintiff’s complaint with prejudice, sanctioned plaintiff in the amount of $2,000 for frivolous conduct and awarded injunctive relief to defendants, as well as counsel fees and costs. Plaintiff then moved for recusal and to renew and/or reargue the December 2013 order, and defendants cross-moved for, among other things, a determination of the amount of counsel fees and costs. In April 2014, the court denied plaintiff’s motion and partially granted the cross motion by, among other things, setting the amount of counsel fees and costs awarded in the December 2013 order at $8,470. Plaintiff appeals from both orders.”

“Supreme Court properly dismissed the fifth cause of action, which alleged in conclusory terms that the law firm’s clients acted in collusion with Follender and the law firm to commit fraud, collusion and deceit. As the court correctly determined, the complaint included no specific allegations whatsoever of any fraudulent statements or other wrongdoing on the clients’ part, and Judiciary Law § 487, by its terms, does not apply to non-attorneys. Finally, we agree with the court that the cause of action alleging defamation and defamation per se did not describe the alleged defamatory statements with the requisite specificity (see CPLR 3016 [a]; Martin v Hayes, 105 AD3d 1291, 1293 [2013]), that the claim was time-barred by the one-year statute of limitations as to all but one of the statements that apparently formed the basis of the allegations (see CPLR 215 [3]), and that the remaining statement was made in the course of the prior court proceeding and was therefore protected by an absolute privilege (see Black v Green Harbour Homeowners’ Assn., Inc., 19 AD3d 962, 963 [2005]). Plaintiff’s contention that the court should have granted leave to amend her complaint rather than dismissing it on the merits is unpreserved (see CPLR 5501 [a] [3]).”

 

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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.