As if a textbook discussing many of the less obvious hurdles for a legal malpractice claimant, Brooks v Baker & Hostelter, LLP  2022 NY Slip Op 32871(U)  August 23, 2022  Supreme Court, New York County  Docket Number: Index No. 655754/2021  Judge: Arlene P. Bluth defines and sets forth the law on issues of standing, commencement of the suit, actual innocence in a claim against a criminal defense attorney and the acts of subsequent counsel.

“As an initial matter, the Court finds that plaintiff lacked capacity to bring this lawsuit at the time the complaint was filed. He admitted in opposition that he petitioned the probate court in Florida on July 12, 2022 to reopen the estate (it was previously closed) and for his reappointment as personal representative. This case was filed in September 2021 and so he did not have capacity to sue on behalf of his brother’s estate when this case was commenced.

Even if the Court were to overlook plaintiff’s lack of capacity to sue, the fact is that plaintiff did not state a valid cause of action for legal malpractice. “In an action to recover damages for legal malpractice, a plaintiff must demonstrate that the attorney failed to exercise the ordinary reasonable skill and knowledge commonly possessed by a member of the legal
profession and that the attorney’s breach of this duty proximately caused plaintiff to sustain actual and ascertainable damages To establish causation, a plaintiff must show that he or she would have prevailed in the underlying action or would not have incurred any damages, but for the lawyer’s negligence” (Rudolf v Shayne, Dachs, Stanisci, Corker & Sauer, 8 NY3d 438, 442, 835 NYS2d 534 [2007] [internal quotations and citations omitted]).

“[A]n individual convicted of a criminal offense must be able to assert his innocence or a colorable claim of innocence before he can pursue a claim against his attorney for legal
malpractice arising out of the criminal proceeding” (Britt v Legal Aid Soc., Inc., 95 NY2d 443, 445, 718 NYS2d 264 [2000]).

Here, it is undisputed that Mr. Brooks pled guilty to various tax charges and was sentenced to years in prison. That the tax charges were severed does not change the fact that
they were all part of the same purportedly insufficient indictment about which plaintiff complains. Moreover, it is undisputed that defendants were representing Mr. Brooks during a
time period when all the charges (both tax and non-tax) were included in the same indictment.

Plaintiff’s attempt to show that Mr. Brooks would not have been imprisoned if defendants had raised the issue about the defective indictment is mere speculation. This claim relies on the suggestion that, somehow, Mr. Brooks would have convinced a subsequent grand jury not to indict him. Of course, that argument fails because he pled guilty to the tax charges. It is also critical to point out that any jurisdictional defect was rendered moot when the government empaneled a new grand jury that returned a second superseding indictment containing the exact same charges against Mr. Brooks. And the courts reviewing the issue noted that any prejudice was overcome.

And, as defendants point out, Mr. Brooks hired many attorneys throughout the course of the U.S. Attorney’s investigation into his criminal conduct and defendants were long gone by the time the actual criminal trial started or when Mr. Brooks pled guilty. These other attorneys had ample opportunity to raise any number of issues on Mr. Brooks’ behalf. And so even if there was some malpractice, successor counsel had a chance to address it (Davis v Cohen & Gresser, LLP, 160 AD3d 484, 487, 74 NYS3d 534 [1st Dept 2018] [dismissing a legal malpractice claim where a successor counsel had sufficient time to protect plaintiff’s interests and failed to do so]).

Finally, the Court finds that the instant matter is time-barred. The Second Circuit’s decision vacating his conviction was issued on September 20, 2017 (see United States v Brooks,
872 F3d 78, 96 [2d Cir 2017]) and this case was not commenced until September 2021. “

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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.