It takes a lot of vexing conduct to be foreclosed from bringing an action in state court.  One has to be very, very obstinate and really tick the judge off.  To do so in a legal malpractice setting is even harder, because the general feeling is that plaintiff must have been hurt by a lawyer before bringing the suit, and perhaps a little slack permitted.

To accomplish foreclosure in both State and Federal courts is a difficult daily double.  This litigant has been foreclosed all around, and will not likely be plaintiff in the near future.  2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 41440, RAFFAELE M. PANDOZY, Plaintiff, – against – ROBERT J. GUMENICK, P.C., Defendant. 07 Civ. 1242 (NRB) UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 41440 May 23, 2008, Decided

"Before this Court is defendant Robert Gumenick’s motion to dismiss the Second Amended Complaint brought against him by Raffaele Pandozy. It alleges that defendant committed legal malpractice during his representation of plaintiff in connection with the sale of plaintiff’s cooperative apartment. Among other reasons, defendant moves to dismiss this action as untimely under the applicable statute of limitations. For the reasons set forth below, we grant defendant’s motion on this ground."

"The basic narrative for our purposes is that after an unsuccessful attempt to extricate himself from the contract to sell his apartment and to avoid the specific performance order that the purchaser obtained against him, plaintiff has spent [*2] the better part of the last four years suing everyone involved with the sale. After being barred by the New York state courts from bringing further actions arising out of the apartment sale, he filed three actions in federal court. The two other cases have been dismissed with both decisions finding plaintiff to be a vexatious litigant and enjoining him from filing further suits arising out of the apartment sale and the ensuing litigation. See Segan, 518 F. Supp. at 559; Tobey, 2007 WL 2815627, at *1. "
 

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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.