Musial v Donohue 2025 NY Slip Op 01485 Decided on March 14, 2025 Appellate Division, Fourth Department discusses whether a viable legal malpractice case can be brought after Plaintiff settles the underlying action, rather that, say, losing it altogether. The rule is that a subsequent legal malpractice case case is viable if the settlement was
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 Legal Malpractice Case Lost; An Appeal Dismissed
Irony abounds in the legal malpractice world. Missteps in legal malpractice litigation are not that rare. Here an appeal was dismissed for lack of a transcript.
“In an action, inter alia, to recover damages for legal malpractice, the plaintiff appeals from an order of the Supreme Court, Queens County (Carmen R. Velasquez, J.), entered August…
Read the AD’s Lips
Ellen’s Stardust, Inc. v Sturm 2025 NY Slip Op 30488(U) February 6, 2025 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 651690/2021 is a short and direct decision by Judge: Andrew Borrok In it he merely quotes an interim AD decision about the second amended complaint to demonstrate that a motion against the third…
A Contested Foreclosure, A Series of Motions and a Judiciary Law 487 Claim
HOF I Grantor Trust 5 v YLW Squared Inc. 2025 NY Slip Op 30681(U) February 26, 2025 Supreme Court, Kings County Docket Number: Index No. 531361/22 Judge: Lawrence Knipel is a mess. A foreclosure granted on default, late and multiple motions to vacate, a novel and intentional attempt to get around word limits in motions…
Many Opportunities and Then An Answer Stricken
Sanders Equities LLC v Maldonado 2025 NY Slip Op 30694(U) March 3, 2025 Supreme Court, Nassau County Docket Number: Index No. 605681/2022 Judge: Sharon M.J. Gianelli is the rare story of an apparently pro-se attorney defendant having his answer stricken in a legal malpractice case.
“By the Court’s most recent Decision and Order, dated October…
Judiciary Law 487 Claim Remains After Appeal
We reported on this case when it was decided in Supreme Court and now after a couple of years it has been decided in the Appellate Division in Altman v Orseck 2025 NY Slip Op 00940 Decided on February 19, 2025 Appellate Division, Second Department.
“The plaintiffs, Charles Altman and Altman Law Group, LLC, commenced…
A Long Course of Representation While the Law Changed
9/11 continues to cast a long shadow over the personal injury world, and will until 2090. That is the lesson of Mollahan v Worby Groner Edelman & Napoli Bern LLP 2025 NY Slip Op 30644(U) February 25, 2025 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 195690/2022 Judge: David B. Cohen. As the law…
Years Of Litigation To No Purpose
Kraemer v Edelstein 2025 NY Slip Op 30623(U) February 24, 2025 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 153243/2024 Judge: Ariel D. Chesler is summed up simply “Plaintiff has come to this Court with nothing short of an unintelligible conspiracy theory not a cause of action.”
“Between 2014 and 2015, plaintiff was involved…
Summary Judgment Reversed On Appeal
Kliger-Weiss Infosystems, Inc. v Ruskin Moscou Faltischek, P.C. 2025 NY Slip Op 00956
Decided on February 19, 2025 Appellate Division, Second Department is that very rare reversal of summary judgment at the appellate level. The Decision illustrates the depth to which the Courts will go in dissecting the “but for” causation in the underlying case.…
No Tolling Agreement, No Case
In DiCarlo v Russo Law Group, P.C. 2025 NY Slip Op 00843 Decided on February 13, 2025
Appellate Division, Second Department it appears that a complaint was served, a complaint was demanded and a stipulation to extend the time to serve the complaint was reached. The stipulation was for an additional one-month’s time. No further…