The Second Department gives a black-letter lecture on the common interest privilege, in a legal malpractice setting.  Saint Annes Dev. Co. v Russ  2018 NY Slip Op 00451 [157 AD3d 919]
January 24, 2018  Appellate Division, Second Department holds that:

“The common-interest privilege is an exception to the traditional rule that the presence of a third party waives the attorney-client privilege (see Hyatt v State of Cal. Franchise Tax Bd., 105 AD3d 186, 205 [2013]; Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co. v Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s, London, 176 Misc 2d 605, 611 [Sup Ct, NY County 1998], affd 263 AD2d 367 [1999]; In re Quigley Co., 2009 WL 9034027, *2-3, 2009 Bankr LEXIS 1352, *7-8 [SD NY, Apr. 24, 2009, No. 04-15739 (SMB)]). To fall within that exception, the privileged communication must be for the purpose of furthering a legal, as opposed to a commercial, interest common to the client and the third party (see Hyatt v State of Cal. Franchise Tax Bd., 105 AD3d at 205; Delta Fin. Corp. v Morrison, 69 AD3d 669 [2010]; U.S. Bank N.A. v APP Intl. Fin. Co., 33 AD3d 430, 431 [2006]). “The legal interest that those parties have in common must be identical (or nearly identical), as opposed to merely similar” (Hyatt v State of Cal. Franchise Tax Bd., 105 AD3d at 205; see United States v Doe, 429 F3d 450, 453 [3d Cir 2005]; F.D.I.C. v Ogden Corp., 202 F3d 454, 461 [1st Cir 2000]). Moreover, the communication must “relate to litigation, either pending or anticipated, in order for the exception to apply” (Ambac Assur. Corp. v Countrywide Home Loans, Inc., 27 NY3d 616, 620 [2016]; see Hyatt v State of Cal. Franchise Tax Bd., 105 AD3d at 205).”

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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.