We are almost at the end of reading cases which discuss the Covid tolling of the statute of limitations in 2020. Here is one of the last likely legal malpractice cases extended by the plague.

In Nath v Chemtob Moss Forman & Beyda, LLP 2024 NY Slip Op 05061 Decided on October 15, 2024 the Appellate Division, First Department affirmed denial of a CPLR 3211 motion in a divorce setting, and gave a terse but informing description of how the statute of limitations might be applied to multiple claims within a continuing representation analysis.

“Defendants represented plaintiff in a divorce proceeding in New York. She now alleges that defendants committed legal malpractice by failing to advise her to file for divorce in California, which distributes property in a manner that she alleges would have been more favorable to her. She further alleges that California had jurisdiction for commencement of a divorce on the basis of numerous documents showing that her then-husband’s main address was in San Francisco. At the motion to dismiss stage, pursuant to CPLR 3211(a)(7) (see generally Lieberman v Green, 139 AD3d 815, 816 [2d Dept 2016]), these allegations sufficiently state that defendants “failed to exercise the ordinary reasonable skill and knowledge commonly possessed by a member of the legal profession” and that their failure caused plaintiff to suffer “actual and ascertainable damages” (id. at 816-817 [internal quotation marks omitted]; see Escape Airports [USA], Inc. v Kent, Beatty & Gordon, LLP, 79 AD3d 437, 438 [1st Dept 2010]).”

“Plaintiff’s claims are not time-barred. So much of the claims as allege that defendants failed to request maintenance and legal fees in the divorce action accrued on December 23, 2019, when the divorce court granted defendants’ motion to withdraw as plaintiff’s counsel. Since plaintiff commenced the instant action on December 15, 2022, this branch of her malpractice [*2]claim is timely.

Plaintiff’s claim that defendants should have advised her to bring suit in California accrued at the earliest on September 11, 2019. Her claim that they should have introduced evidence to support her motion for exclusive occupancy of the marital residence accrued on November 14, 2019, when the divorce court denied that motion. The continuous representation doctrine does not extend beyond November 27, 2019, when defendants informed plaintiff that they could no longer represent her (see Ellison v Seltzer, 209 AD3d 522, 522 [1st Dept 2022]; RJR Mech. Inc. v Ruvoldt, 170 AD3d 515 [1st Dept 2019]). COVID tollinghowever, renders these claims timely (see Murphy v Harris, 210 AD3d 410, 411 [1st Dept 2022]).”

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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.