Borges v Placeres  2014 NY Slip Op 08910 [123 AD3d 611]  December 23, 2014  Appellate Division, First Department is a description of how a legal malpractice trial was lost by the defendant attorney.  There are some rules unique to the legal malpractice sphere, and failure to utilize them can have substantial consequences.

“Defendant’s motions to amend his answer to assert a statute of limitations defense and for summary judgment dismissing the complaint, made on the eve of trial eight years after the answer was served, were properly denied for lack of any excuse for the delay (see Van Damme v Gelber, 111 AD3d 408, 409-410 [1st Dept 2013], lv denied 23 NY3d 904 [2014]). The motion for summary judgment did not seek relief against a party whose timely motion for summary judgment was returnable the same day, and therefore did not fall within the exception permitting a court to entertain an untimely summary judgment motion (see Kershaw v Hospital for Special Surgery, 114 AD3d 75, 87-89 [1st Dept 2013]; Genger v Genger, 120 AD3d 1102 [1st Dept 2014]).

The charge and verdict sheet appropriately required that defendant’s negligence in this attorney malpractice action be a substantial factor in causing plaintiff’s harm (see Barnett v Schwartz, 47 AD3d 197, 204-205 [2d Dept 2007]). Contrary to defendant’s contention, the gravamen of plaintiff’s claim is not that defendant’s departures caused plaintiff to be denied an adjusted immigration status, tantamount to losing a case, but that those departures resulted in a deportation order and the failure to vacate it due to bad advice. Defendant’s argument that the damages awarded for the harm resulting from plaintiff’s 14 months in detention constitute non-pecuniary damages that are not recoverable in a legal malpractice action is unpreserved.”

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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.