Trustees, just like regular prople, put their trust in attorneys.  After all, the attorney can be trusted to take care of the details, no?  Anyway, the attorney is sure to send a bill.  In this situation, the trust in the attorneys rigor was misplaced.

Ianiro v Bachman  2015 NY Slip Op 06709  Decided on September 2, 2015  Appellate Division, Second Department determines that trustees have privity to sue an attorney for work performed for the trust.

“The defendant, who is a lawyer, was retained by the plaintiff Lowell Babington and his wife, Toni Babington, to create and fund a trust of which the plaintiffs Carol Ianiro, Thomas Babington, and Margaret Onody serve as trustees (hereinafter collectively the trustee plaintiffs). The trust was funded with several policies which insured the lives of Lowell and Toni and which were previously owned by the trustee plaintiffs. The plaintiffs allege that the defendant allowed one of the policies on the life of Toni, who is now deceased, to lapse due to nonpayment. The plaintiffs commenced this legal malpractice action to recover the amount of the face value of the policy from the defendant. The defendant moved to dismiss the amended complaint pursuant to CPLR 3211(a), asserting, among other things, that the trustee plaintiffs lack legal standing to maintain this action. The Supreme Court, inter alia, denied that branch of the motion which was to dismiss the complaint insofar as asserted by the trustee plaintiffs as trustees and owners of the trust.

The Supreme Court properly denied that branch of the defendant’s motion which was pursuant to CPLR 3211(a)(7) to dismiss the amended complaint insofar as asserted by the trustee plaintiffs. As the court correctly found, the trustee plaintiffs stand in a position analogous to that of the personal representative of an estate, and therefore, possess the requisite privity, or a relationship sufficiently approaching privity, to maintain an action alleging legal malpractice against the defendant (see generally Estate of Schneider v Finmann, 15 NY3d 306).”

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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.

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