A recent First Department decision[1] dealt with several troubling issues. The following is a cautionary tale in the tangled, inconsistent web of litigation and appeal. This article is also a tale with a warning: put carve-outs in your legal opinions or you may be accused of fraud. Background The issues arose from a $15 million … Continued
William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” interweaves themes of infidelity, deception, mistaken identities and (most importantly for this article) various plays on the words “noting” and “nothing.”[1] Many of these same themes (especially the last one) swirled around a recent case that went up to the U.S. Supreme Court with great public hullabaloo. The case … Continued
Whether you’ve been a solo or small firm practitioner for a year or for decades, there is a thought in everyone’s mind about what happens when you don’t want to do this anymore, or worse yet, when you can’t do it anymore. That’s when preparation pays off. And to be fair, this sort of preparation … Continued
The Nominating Committee invites members of the Association to seek consideration to be a nominee for Association offices beginning in 2024. Members wishing to become an officer or member of the NYSBA Executive Committee should review Article VIII of the Association’s Bylaws describing the Nominating Committee and nominations for office (NYSBA Bylaws). Offices for nomination … Continued
Planning, preparation and mastering your presence during a deposition are key to a successful experience. Scott Occhiogrosso, partner at Block, O’Toole and Murphy, hosted a CLE called “Ten Deposition Lessons You Don’t Want to Learn the Hard Way.” Occhiogrosso specializes in catastrophic construction accidents and serious personal injury cases in New York City. His background … Continued
The opportunity to serve as the 126th president of the New York State Bar Association is the highest honor of my professional career. It is the culmination of all my work for this association, from my service as Executive Committee liaison to the Task Force on Rural Justice to chairing the Uniform Court Rules Committee … Continued
Readers may recall this column that ran in the Bar Journal from 2004 to 2018. After a five-year hiatus, corresponding to a period of significant changes in New York civil practice, occasioned in part by the pandemic but also by systemic changes, some pre-dating the pandemic, we pick up where the column left off.[1] Our … Continued
It took me five years of practicing trust and estates law to develop my own estate plan. The cobbler’s children have no shoes, right? I spent my days counseling clients on the importance of having a will and advance directives, at the very least, and could not find the time over a period of years … Continued
An attorney has taken on a multifaceted case and can’t decide whether to use artificial intelligence to meet discovery demands involving 100,000 sensitive documents. While AI can save money by selecting only the most pertinent documents, the lawyer does not want to risk the client’s privacy by exposing sensitive documents to AI’s DIALOG DTE computer … Continued
The New York State Bar Association is launching a task force to make recommendations about the legal, ethical, public health and policy considerations involved in helping people make end of life decisions. “These sensitive issues can present a minefield for many families during the most difficult time in their lives,” said New York State Bar … Continued