Biography

Bennett J. Wasserman has focused his practice in the area of professional liability, with emphasis on the legal and medical professions. He has been extensively involved in the prosecution, defense and resolution of countless professional liability claims of varying degrees of severity and complexity. He is frequently called upon to analyze issues of compliance or departures from standards of practice and rules of professional conduct and has been recognized as an expert in legal malpractice and legal ethics cases by state and federal courts. Several reported court decisions have cited his expert opinions as the basis for their decisions. In the area of legal malpractice, he has been credited for persuading courts to modify the stringent "trial within a trial" requirement and in eliminating the "entire controversy doctrine".

Mr. Wasserman has served as special professor of law at Hofstra Law School since 1990 when he designed the curriculum for and began teaching the Lawyer Malpractice course. In 2006 his teaching duties were expanded to include Medical Malpractice as well. He has been a guest lecturer at other law schools at home and abroad and has served on the faculty of continuing legal education programs in the area of legal malpractice. He is a regular contributor to legal publications and is the author of the New Jersey Law Journal's Annual Review of the New Jersey Supreme Court's decisions in the areas of legal ethics and legal malpractice. He is editor of Legalmalpractice.infoBlog, a Web-based informational resource and forum for legal malpractice topics.

Professor Wasserman is a graduate of Hunter College (B.A., 1968, M.A., 1970) and Hofstra University School of Law (J.D., cum laude 1974), where he served as articles editor of the Hofstra Law Review. He is admitted to practice in the state and federal courts of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, its Circuit Courts and the U.S. Supreme Court. He has been a certified civil trial attorney by the Supreme Court of New Jersey since 1985. He is of counsel to Stryker Tams & Dill, LLP, with offices in Newark, New Jersey, and New York City.