Seven lawyers from Faraci Lange LLP have been selected by their peers for inclusion in the 2011 edition of Best Lawyers in America^®.

The attorneys named are:

• Matthew F. Belanger, in the practice areas of personal injury litigation and product liability litigation. Belanger, a resident of Brighton, has been named to Best Lawyers since 2008.
• John A. Falk, in medical malpractice law, personal injury litigation and product liability litigation. The Brighton resident also was named to Best Lawyers in 2009.
• Angelo G. Faraci, in legal malpractice law, medical malpractice law, personal injury litigation and product liability litigation. Faraci, who resides in Rochester, has been listed in Best Lawyers since its inception in 1983.
• Paul K. Lange, in medical malpractice law, personal injury litigation and product liability litigation. First named to Best Lawyers in 2001, Lange resides in Rochester.
• Joseph A. Regan, in medical malpractice law, personal injury litigation and product liability litigation. The Rochester resident has been named to Best Lawyers since 2005.
• Stephen G. Schwarz, in medical malpractice law, personal injury litigation and product liability litigation. The Fairport resident was first named to Best Lawyers in 1999.
• Brian M. Zorn, in medical malpractice law, personal injury litigation and product liability litigation. Zorn, who resides in Victor, has been named to Best Lawyers since 1995.

Best Lawyers, the oldest and most respected peer-review publication in the legal profession, is based on an exhaustive annual survey in which more than 39,000 leading attorneys cast almost 3.1 million votes on the legal abilities of other lawyers in their practice areas. Since its inception in 1983, Best Lawyers has become universally regarded as the definitive guide to legal excellence.

Because Best Lawyers is based on a peer-review survey, and because lawyers are not required or allowed to pay a fee to be listed, inclusion in Best Lawyers is considered a singular honor. Corporate Counsel magazine has called Best Lawyers “the most respected referral list of attorneys in practice.”

Steven Naifeh, president of Best Lawyers, said, “We continue to believe – as we have believed for 28 years – that recognition by one’s peers is the most meaningful form of recognition in the legal profession.”

Faraci Lange LLP announced today that David L. Cook has joined the firm as a partner.

Cook focuses his practice on commercial and real estate litigation, environmental law, agriculture law, labor and employment, and personal injury law. Before joining Faraci Lange LLP he was an equity partner at Nixon Peabody LLP and previously served as the chair of the real estate litigation team.

He is a member of the Monroe County Bar Association, the New York State Bar Association and the American Bar Association. Cook earned his law degree and his master’s degree in Public Administration from Brigham Young University. He has been recognized as a “New York Super Lawyer” and has received an AV rating, the highest rating available, from Martindale-Hubbell.

Julie S. Jordan, an associate at Faraci Lange LLP, has been recognized with the Up and Coming Attorney Award from The Daily Record.

The award is given to attorneys who are active in the community, demonstrate a commitment to the community through activities or pro bono work, and who demonstrate leadership and above-average achievements in day-to-day legal assignments. 

Jordan focuses her practice on medical malpractice, complex tort and toxic tort, premises liability, products liability and automotive negligence cases. She is a resident of Farmington, N.Y.

Click here to read the full article from the Rochester Business Journal.

I. Introduction

In an effort to combat rising automobile insurance rates, in 1974 the New York Legislature passed sweeping changes to the Insurance Law designed to provide a basic level of economic coverage for New York drivers hurt in motor vehicle accidents while at the same time significantly curtailing the number of motor vehicle cases litigated in the State courts.

Known as the No-Fault law, the statutes create a dual system for compensating persons involved in motor vehicle accidents. Regardless of fault, every automobile insurance policy in New York provides for the payment of first-party benefits of up to $50,000 for “basic economic loss” for covered persons injured in car accidents, but bars the filing of lawsuits against the at-fault party to recover non-economic loss (i.e. pain and suffering) except for those who have suffered “serious injury” as defined by the statute. More…

Back in September of 2008, we posted an article about Kash v. Jewish Home & Infirmary of Rochester, a case scheduled to be heard by the Appellate Division, Fourth Department in its upcoming term. The appeal was argued in December and was recently decided by a 3-2 majority of the justices in favor of victims of neglect or abuse in nursing homes. The Appellate Division held that a nursing home resident injured due to the negligence of the staff could bring a medical malpractice claim against the nursing home together with a claim under New York Public Health Law §2801-d. See Kash v. Jewish Home & Infirmary of Rochester, N.Y., Inc., 2009 NY Slip Op 1041, 2009 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 1065 (4th Dept. 2009). (For more infromation about §2801-d, read the September 19, 2008 posting). More…

Section 3420 of the New York Insurance Law, which sets forth requirements for liability insurance policies issued in New York State, was amended recently in two important ways that will help injury victims. Liability insurance policies, including automobile and homeowner’s insurance policies, typically require that the negligent party inform his or her insurance company of any possible claims within a particular period of time. These notice provisions are designed to ensure that the company has an opportunity to investigate claims right away, while witnesses can still be located and evidence has not been lost or destroyed. More…

When you are injured due to someone’s negligence in an auto accident, truck accident, fall on defective stairs, or by a medical mistake or by toxic contamination released from a nearby manufacturing plant or by a defective drug or product, your remedy to recover damages is to make a claim within the civil justice system.

Introduction and background

The rules followed in this system are based upon a combination of statutory law (laws passed by the legislature) and what is referred to as common law, the law we inherited from the judicial precedents of English law, which have evolved through the judicial decisions of judges in the State of New York over the past few hundred years.
More…