We chanced across this story about Jesse James, his legal problems, and the proposed solution to being sued.  One Lawyer’s Showdown With Jesse James

"The thought of a showdown with notorious Wild West bank robber Jesse James conjures up images of six-shooters drawn on a dusty main street. But it appears that one brave Missouri lawyer sought recourse from James in a more lawyerly way, by taking him to court — and won. James elected not to appeal but, outlaw that he was, twice later tried to shoot the lawyer who beat him in court.

A modern-day Missouri lawyer, James P. Muehlberger of Shook, Hardy & Bacon, last month discovered documents detailing the litigation. His discovery and the story it reveals are reported this week in The Kansas City Star [via Bashman]. The timing of his discovery could not be better, given last week’s release of the Brad Pitt movie, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

As Star writer Brian Burnes recounts, Ford may have been a coward, but young lawyer Henry McDougal was anything but. The case stemmed from an 1869 bank robbery in Gallatin, Mo., in which two robbers shot and killed the cashier. As they made their getaway, one robber’s horse bolted, forcing the pair to escape on one horse. The horse they left behind was identified as belonging to James.

Outside town, the bank robbers encountered Daniel Smoote and forced him to hand over his horse. The smitten Smoote wanted to sue James, but could find no lawyer willing to take his case, until he met McDougal, then 25 and a lawyer for just a year. McDougal sued for attachment of the horse James left behind. Surprisingly, James retained a lawyer and responded with legal maneuvers of his own, asking the court to quash service of the complaint. After nearly two years of legal gun slinging, James refused to appear for trial and the court entered judgment for McDougal’s client.

That was not the end of the case for James. In 1871, he rode into Gallatin with the aim of shooting McDougal, but failed. A decade later, a second attempt to shoot McDougal was also linked to James. None of that hurt McDougal’s career — he went on to become president of the Kansas City and Missouri bar associations and to partner with the lawyer who founded Shook Hardy. Even in the Wild West, it seems, justice prevailed. "

Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on September 26, 2007 at 12:09 PM |

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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.

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