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Daniel “Dan” Dagostino graduated in 1997 from the State University of New York at Albany with a degree in History. Following graduation he worked at Martin, Harding & Mazzotti, LLP as a legal assistant under the supervision of Paul Harding.. According to Dan, his first position with Martin, Harding & Mazzotti, LLP allowed him to obtain firsthand experience as to the emotional, physical and financial hardships injured persons endure as a result of an unexpected incident and the positive impact of Martin, Harding & Mazzotti, LLP during and after the legal matter concluded.. After working for approximately one year at the firm, Dan decided he wanted to become a lawyer and attended Southwestern University School of Law in Los Angeles, California. Upon graduating, he remained in Los Angeles and became admitted to practice in California. In Los Angeles, Dan litigated personal injury matters on behalf of injured persons as well as insurance carriers.. In 2006, a position opened in the Case Management Unit of Martin, Harding & Mazzotti, LLP and Dan anxiously returned to New York to join the team. “Upon returning to Martin, Harding & Mazzotti, LLP, I was glad to see that they had surpassed the level of legal and personal service of any firm which I had ever been employed.”. Since returning to Martin, Harding & Mazzotti, LLP, Dan has also become admitted to practice law in New York, Washington D.C. and Massachusetts. Currently, Dan remains as an attorney in the Case Management Unit whereby he is able to interact with clients throughout and after the conclusion of their legal matters. In addition, Dan has become the supervisor of our Worker’s Compensation and Social Security Disability Departments.. Dan is also very active in the community. Dan is a board member of the Workers’ Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG). This is a national organization dedicated to representing the interests of millions of workers and their families who suffer the consequences of work related injuries. Also, Dan is a member of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association and BNI (Latham Branch). BNI is the largest networking organization in the world.. Dan is also active in local sports. Since 2007, Dan has coached in the Tartan Youth Basketball Program.

I have a confession to make.  I am a lawyer.  Worse, I am a litigation lawyer.  For more than 25 years I have made my living by prosecuting and defending civil lawsuits arising out of everything from car accidents to misuse of company secrets.  And yet if I had a quarter for every time someone told me, “Gee, you don’t look like a lawyer,” I would have been able to retire years ago.  After all, what do people think a lawyer looks like?  One Halloween I think that I came pretty close: I made up my face in bright red, attached some horns to my forehead, and stuffed play money into all of the pockets of my three-piece suit.. Being a member of one of the country’s most maligned professions, I have developed a pretty thick skin when it comes to my occupation.  But after the continual lawyer jokes (some of which I actually do find amusing), the veiled barbs overheard at cocktail parties, and the endless assaults in the media, I am still troubled by the precipitous decline in society’s perception of the legal profession over the past fifty years or so.  How could the models for Perry Mason and Atticus Finch of To Kill A Mockingbird have become the Bad Guys that everybody loves to hate?  There are, of course, the garish billboards and obnoxious television advertisements.  There are the reports of enormous jury verdicts for seemingly trivial injuries.  There are the over-publicized criminal trials that sometimes seem to be tailored to the media like a national sporting event.  It is easy just to blame the lawyers involved.  Easy, but incomplete.  The lawyers are only a part of the issue.  Ultimately, they are nothing more than mirrors of the society that they serve.. Americans, as a whole, have become increasingly reluctant to take responsibility for their own actions and their own mistakes. Whether fueled by anger or greed, their first reaction to any personal crisis, self-inflicted or otherwise, inevitably seems to be, "Someone will pay for this."  Headlines of unjustifiable multi-million dollar verdicts only feed plaintiffs' unrealistic expectations and numb the juries, the courts, and the public to the consequences of these awards. First and foremost, Americans need to learn that life is not a lottery.. Although my work now is largely limited to representing defendants, when I used to represent plaintiffs in personal injury cases I would sometimes be approached by clients who had been only slightly injured in an accident, but who saw the prospect of an enormous verdict and wanted to cash in on their experience. After listening to their description of the accident and their injuries, I had a standard response to such clients:  “Well, I have good news and bad news.  The good news is that you are not really hurt.  The bad news is that you are not really hurt.”  They usually understood my point.. Moreover, it is not the lawyers who hand down the staggering verdicts that receive so much attention.  Behind nearly every multi-million dollar verdict is a jury of six to twelve average people who actually decide the amount awarded.  Very few of those juries have any lawyers on them.  Although the plaintiff may have had an attorney who argued in favor of that enormous award, there was another attorney in the court room who argued against it. Confronted with a sympathetic plaintiff or an unsympathetic defendant, many jurors abandon any sense of economic reality and return crippling verdicts without ever considering the deeper consequences to their insurance rates, their businesses, their communities, and to society at large.. That is not to say that some of these verdicts are not justified. I am familiar with a several plaintiffs with catastrophic personal injuries whose cases have resulted in enormous awards.  I know that those individuals will not be spending the money that they have received on new cars and vacation trips, and I would not willingly subject myself to their suffering and that of their families for any amount of money.  For those people, their lawyer, like their doctor, was simply a necessary part of the process of trying to rebuild a broken life.. A number of years ago I heard a story of a doctor who was so incensed at his medical malpractice insurance premiums that he refused to treat attorneys or anyone who worked for them.  I recall wondering who he was going to contact if his son were imprisoned for a crime that he didn’t commit or if his daughter were paralyzed in an automobile accident.  Lawyers don’t seem so bad when you need one.. In Upstate New York, where I practice, lawyer advertising seems to be on the increase.  It ranges in content and delivery from tasteful to acutely embarrassing.  Yet for each person who decries such advertising, there is another making a note of the advertiser’s telephone number.  If people did not respond to those advertisements, they would quickly become too expensive to support.  Yet, all too often, when someone needs a lawyer they do not know where to turn.  Although in the future we may devise more effective ways to bring lawyers and prospective clients together, those advertisements will continue as long as they bring clients to those who sponsor them.. Believe it or not, I am proud of my occupation.  I am proud of the heritage of Atticus Finch.  I am proud of the confidence that my clients place in me.  Is my profession imperfect?  Absolutely.  But so is the society in which we live.  Only when our society changes will those who mirror it change accordingly.

Mr. Moschetti is a New York personal injury law firm attorney and a founding member of the law firm of Anderson, Moschetti and Taffany. Over the years, he has obtained numerous multi-million dollar verdicts and settlements in personal injury cases and has achieved record-setting verdicts in a number of counties in the Albany region, including a verdict of more than $15.8 million dollars.. Mr. Moschetti was employed as a prosecutor in the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office from 1984 to 1987. Since leaving the District Attorney’s Office, he has focused on the trial of personal injury and wrongful death cases, including complex products liability and medical malpractice actions. He has represented hundreds of victims of motor vehicle collisions, construction and industrial accidents, defective products as well as medical and nursing home malpractice.. Mr. Moschetti also defends individuals and corporations charged with serious crimes in both the state and federal courts. Over the years, he has been appointed as a special prosecutor in a number of high-profile criminal cases in the Capital District. He represents, advises and defends individual and corporate clients regarding criminal matters, government investigations, complex civil litigation, internal investigations and contested regulatory proceedings. He has successfully tried numerous criminal cases in the state and federal courts. Additionally, he frequently represents lawyers and judges before state agencies investigating complaints of professional and judicial misconduct.

Benjamin was born and raised in upstate New York. He attended high school locally at Shenendehowa where he was a proud member of the 2014 Section II Champion Ice Hockey team. Benjamin attended the University of Maine in Orono. During his undergraduate studies, Benjamin also spent a summer at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands at the School of International Law and Public Policy. Benjamin was a recipient of the Tibor J. Bebek Memorial Scholarship and a member of Pi Sigma Alpha- The National Political Science Honor Society. After graduating from the University of Maine cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science, Benjamin returned home to obtain his Juris Doctor from Albany Law School.. While in law school, Benjamin began his legal career as a law clerk for Martin, Harding & Mazzotti working in the Connective Tissue, Mass Torts, and Litigation departments. During his time in law school, Benjamin also attended the Innovation and Technology Law Lab as a representative for Albany Law School at the University of Padova in Italy. Benjamin was a member of the Mediation Apprenticeship Clinic at Albany Law School where he completed intensive training in mediation theory and skills and was able to assist clients in mediating small claims including landlord-tenant disputes and contract disputes. Benjamin is a certified mediator with the local organization, Mediation Matters.. Upon graduation, Benjamin was thrilled to receive an offer to join the litigation department full-time. After nearly four years with the firm and as someone who grew up in the Capital District, Benjamin was able to see first-hand how much of an impact Martin, Harding & Mazzotti makes in both their clients lives and their communities. Benjamin looks forward to helping injured clients who have been harmed through no fault of their own.. Benjamin was admitted to the New York State Bar in 2022. He now lives in Saratoga County. When he is not in the office Benjamin enjoys spending time with his family, playing ice hockey, and skiing.

Connor Hoffman grew up in the Capital Region, graduating from Ballston Spa High School with an interest in football and lacrosse. After high school, he attended the State University at Albany, where he was enrolled in an accelerated law program which allowed him to complete his undergraduate degree a year early. Connor graduated from Albany Law School and was admitted to the New York State Bar shortly thereafter.. Connor began his legal career at a boutique law firm in Columbia County, where he drafted motions, handled client relations, and researched a multitude of complex legal issues. During this time, Connor developed a passion for helping clients, and when an opportunity arose in the Connective Tissue unit, he eagerly joined.. In his spare time, Connor enjoys golfing, hiking, and spending time with his family.

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