Golub v Shalik Morris & Co., LLP 2022 NY Slip Op 03888 [206 AD3d 799] June 15, 2022
Appellate Division, Second Department is a pair of cases claiming accounting fees and accounting malpractice. Neither side could demonstrate the lack of material questions of fact.

“In May 2016, Aaron Richard Golub commenced an action in the Supreme Court, New York County, against the accounting firm of Shalik, Morris & Company, LLP (hereinafter the Shalik firm), seeking, among other things, the return of his accounting records and files (hereinafter action No. 1). The Shalik firm answered and interposed counterclaims against Golub sounding in breach of contract and quantum meruit. Golub served a reply asserting affirmative defenses alleging, inter alia, accounting malpractice.

In June 2016, the Shalik firm commenced an action in the Supreme Court, Nassau County, against Golub’s companies, Aaron Richard Golub, Esquire, P.C., and Sunset Boulevard Films, Ltd. (hereinafter together the Golub companies), alleging causes of action sounding in breach of contract and quantum meruit (hereinafter action No. 2). The Golub companies answered and asserted affirmative defenses alleging, among other things, accounting malpractice. The counterclaims in action No. 1 were severed and were later joined for trial with action No. 2 in the Supreme Court, Nassau County.

[*2] In June 2019, Golub and the Golub companies moved in both actions, in effect, for summary judgment (1) dismissing the Shalik firm’s causes of action and counterclaims asserted against them, and (2) on their affirmative defenses alleging accounting malpractice. The Supreme Court denied the motion, and Golub and the Golub companies appeal. We affirm.

Golub and the Golub companies failed to establish their prima facie entitlement to judgment as a matter of law dismissing the breach of contract and quantum meruit causes of action and counterclaims to recover payment for accounting services rendered. The evidence submitted in support of their motion failed to eliminate triable issues of fact as to whether the parties had agreed upon a flat fee arrangement as contended by Golub and the Golub companies (see 2978 Gas Corp. v United Fleet, Inc., 197 AD3d 1138, 1139 [2021]; see generally Cobble Hill Nursing Home v Henry & Warren Corp., 74 NY2d 475, 482 [1989]). Additionally, they failed to establish, prima facie, their entitlement to judgment as a matter of law on their affirmative defenses alleging accounting malpractice (see Zuckerman v City of New York, 49 NY2d 557, 562 [1980]; Alskom Realty, LLC v Baranik, 189 AD3d 745 [2020]). Accordingly, Golub and the Golub companies’ motion was properly denied without regard to the sufficiency of the Shalik firm’s papers in opposition (see Winegrad v New York Univ. Med. Ctr., 64 NY2d 851, 853 [1985]; 2978 Gas Corp. v United Fleet, Inc., 197 AD3d at 1140). Miller, J.P., Maltese, Zayas and Ford, JJ., concur.”

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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.