We are proud to report that Andrew Lavoott Bluestone has been admitted as a Diplomate to the American Board of Professional Liability Attorneys.  Andrew Lavoott Bluestone is the author and publisher of the New York Attorney Malpractice Blog

The American Board of Professional Liability Attorneys (ABPLA) is the only organization accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA) to certify attorneys in the areas of medical malpractice and legal malpractice. Legal & medical malpractice lawyers who are Board Certified must meet and exceed rigorous standards set by the ABPLA, and are recognized as leaders in professional negligence law.

 

To become Board Certified as a professional negligence attorney by ABPLA, malpractice lawyers are evaluated by five objective measures:

Experience
Ethics
Education
Examination
Excellence
Any candidate for Board Certification must be viewed by the board as having met ABPLA’s high standards in each of these five key areas before the lawyer can be Board Certified.

Experience – To qualify to be a Board Certified malpractice lawyer an attorney must have extensive experience in the area of professional malpractice, requiring that a significant portion of his or her practice be devoted to this area of the law. Additionally, each applicant must meet minimum requirements for experience in trial, mediation, arbitration and discovery in cases specifically devoted to professional liability.

Ethics – Each Board Certified professional malpractice attorney must be a current bar member in good standing and must immediately report any disciplinary action to the board.

Education – Board Certification requires the attorney to meet ABPLA’s minimum standards for continuing legal education, staying current in the area of professional liability litigation, as well as meeting all continuing legal education requirements of the attorney’s state bar association.

Examination – To become Board Certified, each lawyer must pass an examination administered by ABPLA to demonstrate competency in the area of professional malpractice litigation.

Excellence – Each lawyer must supply references by no less than three judges and three attorneys familiar with his or her practice and attesting that the lawyer is substantially involved and highly competent in professional negligence cases.

 

LEGAL PROFESSIONAL LIABILITY REQUIREMENTS

To become Board Certified in the area of Legal Professional Liability, the following requirements must also be met:

 

Demonstrate substantial involvement in Legal Professional Liability by showing you:

  • Have served as LEAD counsel during your legal career in at least 10 trials or arbitrations where testimonial evidence was presented and the matters were submitted to the finder of fact; and of the aforesaid 10 trials, 2 must involve claims of Legal Professional Liability and 1 must be a jury trial.
  • Participated in 20 additional contested matters (trials, hearings, depositions) involving claims of Legal Professional Liability.
  • Within the 3 years prior to application, have done any one of the following:
    • 1. Participated in 10 matters involving claims of Legal Professional Liability that went to trial or alternate dispute resolution;
    • 2. Concluded 24 litigated matters involving claims of Legal Professional Liability as lead counsel or in a supervisory capacity to lead counsel;
    • 3. Had 24 performances (depositions, hearings) involving claims of Legal Professional Liability; or
    • 4. Any combination of trial days, participation in litigated matters or performances which demonstrates substantial involvement in Legal Professional Liabiity

Andrew Lavoott Bluestone can be reached:  233 Broadway, Suite 2702, New York, NY 10279  His telephone number is (212) 791-5600.

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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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