Attorneys have their own special obligations in handling financial matters for their clients.  When they are told to wire money to a third party, they have some obligation to check on the bona fides of the recipient. They may not blindly follow wrongful or fraudulent orders.  This is the reason we see summary judgment fail on appeal in Fidelity Natl. Tit. Ins. Co. of N.Y. v Lite & Russell, P.C.  2015 NY Slip Op 07616  Decided on October 21, 2015  Appellate Division, Second Department.

“In 2005, the defendants, Lite & Russell, P.C., and Justin Lite (hereinafter together the Lite defendants), represented Albarano Holding Corp. (hereinafter Albarano), a private mortgage lender, at a closing for a loan transaction. After the closing, the Lite defendants wired certain proceeds of the loan transaction to a Swiss bank account in Zurich, allegedly acting under the instructions of the purported borrowers. The individuals purporting to be the borrowers were later discovered to be imposters. Albarano then filed a claim with the plaintiff to recover the subject proceeds. The plaintiff paid Albarano, and thereafter commenced the instant action, as subrogee of Albarano, against the Lite defendants to recover damages, inter alia, for legal malpractice. The Lite defendants moved for summary judgment dismissing the complaint, and the Supreme Court granted the motion. We reverse the order insofar as appealed from.”

“Here, in support of their motion, the Lite defendants established, prima facie, inter alia, that Lite did not fail to exercise the ordinary reasonable skill and knowledge commonly possessed by a member of the legal profession (see Feldman v Finkelstein & Partners, LLP, 131 AD3d 505; Schiff v Sallah Law Firm, P.C., 128 AD3d 668). However, in opposition, the plaintiff raised a triable issue of fact, inter alia, as to whether Lite’s conduct in wiring the subject funds constituted legal malpractice and whether this conduct was a proximate cause of Albarano’s damages (see Blanco v Polanco, 116 AD3d 892, 894-895). Accordingly, the Supreme Court should have denied the Lite defendants’ motion for summary judgment.”

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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.