Andrew Lavoott Bluestone

Subscribe to Andrew Lavoott Bluestone's Posts

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.

Follow: Read more about Andrew Lavoott BluestoneAndrew Lavoott's Linkedin Profile

Generally speaking, there has been a stark split between the First and Second Departments over the standard for a Judiciary Law § 487 claim.  In the First Department there was a requirement of a “chronic and extreme pattern of legal delinquency” and in the Second Department a single egregious incident of deceit was sufficient.  Amtrust …

Plaintiff defended a suit by her attorneys seeking a contingent fee on the basis that they settled the case without her authorization.  Customarilly, these cases are a win for the attorney.  Not yet, in Silbowitz, Garafola, Silbowitz, Schatz & Frederick, LLP v Paravas 2021 NY Slip Op 01871
Decided on March 25, 2021 Appellate…

Sometimes with the statute of limitations staring at plaintiff, the question of whether the case is premature arises.  There is, of course, a conundrum.  Bring the case now (while the underlying case is still pending) and it is too early.  Wait for the underlying case to resolve, and it will be too late.

Aydiner v …

Hall v Hobbick 2021 NY Slip Op 01398 Decided on March 10, 2021 Appellate Division, Second Department illustrates the principle that no written retainer agreement is necessary for the formation of an attorney-client relationship.

“The Supreme Court erred in granting that branch of the third-party defendants’ motion which was pursuant to CPLR 3211(a)(1) and (7)…

Alrose Steinway, LLC v Jaspan Schlesinger, LLP  2021 NY Slip Op 30619(U) March 5, 2021Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 151482/2017 Judge: Andrea Masley is a long, reasoned and detailed discussion of a legal malpractice claim based upon a projection of future commercial events.  it is too long to effectively excerpt it for a…

Cases are rarely directly dismissed for discovery failures. Generally, discovery failures manifest themselves in a bad outcome at trial, in a bad outcome on summary judgment, or in a flameout prior to trial, with attorneys withdrawing and the case sputtering to a finish.  Here, in Cascardo v Dratel  2021 NY Slip Op 30667(U) March 4,…