The answer to today’s question is "quite a ways." Without further comment, here is Breytman v Schechter ; 2011 NY Slip Op 51375(U) ;  Supreme Court, Kings County   Schack, J.
" In my prior February 8, 2011 decision and order, I granted defendants summary judgment and dismissed the instant action with prejudice. However, despite the dismissal with prejudice, plaintiff BREYTMAN now moves for various relief, including what the Court deems a motion to reargue. The Court, for reasons that will be explained, finds the instant motion "frivolous." It is completely without merit in law and undertaken primarily to harass and maliciously injure defendants SCHECHTER and the Court. After giving plaintiff BREYTMAN a reasonable opportunity to be heard and reviewing all papers submitted and the oral argument transcript, the instant motion is denied. Costs and sanctions are imposed upon plaintiff BREYTMAN for frivolous conduct."
 

"The following are some examples of plaintiff BREYTMAN’s outrageous and offensive statements. Plaintiff begins his affidavit in support of the motion by stating, in ¶ 1, "I Alexander Breytman the last of the Mohicans have chutzpah to make this affidavit in support and against dishonorable Arthur M. Schack Universe and Donald Schechter Galaxy and Karl Marxist and Fredrick Engels’ fuzzy Machiavellian order selling snake oil, legally deficient full of holes like Swiss cheese where I can fly space shuttle through [sic]." Further, at ¶ 5, plaintiff informs the Court "Your order is unconstitutional and I do not have to follow, lead or get out of the way, you just overruled by Pro se, how you like them apples [sic]." Then, at ¶ 11, he states, "I am immune from your dishonorable illegal order that is unconstitutional and therefore is null and void and is in effect under lock and key [sic]." Plaintiff, in ¶ 18, calls the Court "Your dishonor," claims that the Court is "both a communistic argument or fascist which for all intent and purposed are the same dam thing [sic]" and informs the Court that "You and your compadres are the problem that plagues this world and not a solution kapish'[sic]." Moreover, plaintiff states: in ¶ 26, "Your dishonorable unconstitutional hypocritical order is meaningless and I do need to comply at all [sic]"; in ¶ 27, "Your dishonor futile attempt to muzzle me only prolongs my pain and suffering [sic]"; and, in ¶ 31, "I am not your sheep for a slaughter. You try but will fail to set my world on fire rather it is your universe that will burn . . . I will rise like Phoenix out of ashes and will reverse your malicious Swiss cheese order . . . You and Schechter only prolong my pain and [*5]suffering and this I cannot and will not live with. I will do my crying in the rain. Donald Schechter Eureka moment is short lived [sic]."

Moreover, plaintiff did an internet search about the Court, reciting personal information about myself and my family that appeared in the New York Times on August 31, 2009, which is totally irrelevant to the instant motion. For example, he wrote, in ¶ 16, "You were a union representative and once walked a picket line with his wife . . . who was a teacher, too . . . Ooh schools in US suuuuuucccccckkkkkkssssss . . . You are not supposed to be picketing with UFT and quiet unethical conduct [sic]." Then, in oral argument, plaintiff attacked me for engaging in picketing, which occurred years before I became a judge, let alone a Member of the Bar. It is not a secret that years before my election as a judge I was a New York City teacher, United Federation of Teachers Chapter Chairman and on strike in 1968 and 1975. Yet, at p. 26, lines 5 – 22, plaintiff engaged in slander, equating events of 1968 and 1975 with the present"

"Clearly, the pattern of plaintiff BREYTMAN’s conduct in the instant action is subject to costs and sanctions. Plaintiff’s arguments in his papers, in support of the instant motion, and in the June 14, 2011 oral argument are replete with threatening, defamatory and malicious statements about defendants SCHECHTER and the Court. They are frivolous and "completely without merit in law or fact." Plaintiff BREYTMAN failed to make any specific allegations that the Court misapprehended or overlooked any matters of fact and law. The instant motion is but another example of plaintiff’s continued harassment of defendants and abuse of the judicial process, with the addition of personal invective and animus directed at the Court. The instant motion prolonged this litigation and attempts "to harass or maliciously injure" defendants SCHECHTER and the Court. In this time of budgetary cuts, combined with increased caseloads, the Court does not need to waste its scarce resources to be the arena for plaintiff BREYTMAN’s personal vendettas against defendants and the Court.

Therefore, based upon the totality of plaintiff BREYTMAN’S frivolous conduct in making the instant motion, the Court finds it is appropriate to award costs of $1,700.00 to defendants SCHECHTER for 10 hours of attorney’s fees at $170.00 per hour. Further, for the waste of judicial resources and "to deter vexatious litigation and dilatory or malicious litigation tactics" by plaintiff BREYTMAN, the Court, in its discretion, imposes financial sanctions of $2,500.00 upon plaintiff BREYTMAN
 

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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.