A.M. Richardson, III, LLC v Iron Oak, Inc. 2024 NY Slip Op 33464(U) September 27, 2024 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 651250/2023 Judge: Lyle E. Frank is short and sweet. Attorney send an invoice and client writes back that they have to discuss the bill. Insufficient objection to overcome the “account
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 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.
A Pro Se Claim Falters on Voluntary Settlement
Getty v Schiavetta 2024 NY Slip Op 50697(U) [83 Misc 3d 1212(A)] Decided on May 18, 2024 Supreme Court, Westchester County Ondrovic, J. is a claim of legal malpractice and violation of Judiciary Law 487. Portions of the case were dismissed and motions for default were denied.
“By way of background, pro se plaintiff commenced…
A Criminal Defense Attorney is Almost Immune to Legal Malpractice Claims
We have often argued that attorneys are given many dispensations in legal malpractice litigation that defendants in other professional negligence cases and in most litigation do not enjoy. Our colleagues in the legal defense bar don’t exactly disagree, but generally argue that the rules are fair. One item that no one disagrees with is that…
Requirements For Continuous Representation Tolling of the Statute of Limitations
Chang v Yi Lin 2024 NY Slip Op 33338(U) September 20, 2024 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 161222/2023 Judge: Mary V. Rosado is an not unusual legal malpractice claim in which it is unclear whether the attorney actually represented plaintiff (or whether he represented her husband only). Added to the factual…
You May Have Thought Mediation Documents were Confidential, But…
After several go-rounds the matter of Prospect Capital Corp. v Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP 2024 NY Slip Op 33322(U) September 19, 2024 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 653941/2022 Judge: Margaret A. Chan is moving forward. Initially dismissed, then re-argued, the case turns on “the real harm “flowing from defendants’ alleged…
More Real Estate Legal Malpractice
We have often noted that real estate legal malpractice claims take up a large part of the New York legal malpractice world. FTF Lending, LLC v Mavrides, Moyal, Packman & Sadkin, LLP 2024 NY Slip Op 33115(U) September 6, 2024 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 153620/2020 Judge: Margaret A. Chan is…
Speculation About How A Jury Might Act
Legal malpractice is always a comparison between the actual outcome and the hypothetical better outcome had the attorneys not departed from good practice. Courts often refuse to allow plaintiff to “prove” the hypothetical better outcome. While plaintiff can succeed where there has been a total shutout in the actual outcome (and can show that a…
Problem After Problem
Balta v Graner 2024 NY Slip Op 51273(U) Decided on August 28, 2024
Supreme Court, Kings County Rivera, J.
An attorney is hired to litigate a fire case. He files a Summons with Notice and then fails to serve a complaint when it is demanded. A motion to dismiss is granted on default. Opposition to…
Actual Innocence and Legal Malpractice Claims Against Defenders
Poquee v Wheldon 2024 NY Slip Op 51245(U) Decided on September 5, 2024 Supreme Court, Albany County, Hartman, J., restates the well settled (and perhaps unfair) rule that a criminal defendant has no good claim against the defense attorney absent “actual innocence” which generally means acquittal, exoneration or reversal on appeal.
Practitioners get a large…
After Appellate Reversal, Neither Side Gets Summary Judgment
In Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP v 3 W. 16th St., LLC 2024 NY Slip Op 33084(U) September 3, 2024 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 654238/2021 Judge: Lyle E. Frank, neither the attorney claiming an account stated nor defendants, claiming the passage of the statute of limitations gets summary judgment.
“Plaintiff…