The statute of limitations serves to freshen and re-freshen the litigation warehouse. Claims and potential claims are warehoused, and then sometimes brought out. Policy considerations require that there be limits on how long a claim can be stored. When the sue-by date arrives, the question of a statute of limitations must be decided, as in
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.
Mental Illness, Insanity and the Statute of Limitations
Reading legal malpractice cases is an exercise in human sadness and unfortunate circumstance. Okello v Schwartzapfel, P.C. 2018 NY Slip Op 30402(U) March 12, 2018 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 154971/2017 Judge: Arlene P. Bluth is no exception. The case illustrates the intersection between mental illness, insanity and tolling of the statute of…
Accounting Malpractice and Summary Judgment
Vitale v Koenig 2017 NY Slip Op 51557(U) [57 Misc 3d 1219(A)] Decided on October 12, 2017
Supreme Court, New York County St. George, J. gives a very nice analysis of how accounting malpractice is considered on a motion for summary judgment.
“The current lawsuit, which is joined for discovery purposes with Vitale v Sonzone…
Not Legal Malpractice, Not Judiciary Law 487, Not Going Forward
Freeman v Brecher 2017 NY Slip Op 07949 [155 AD3d 453] November 14, 2017 Appellate Division, First Department is a series of “no” determinations. Not Legal Malpractice, not Judiciary Law § 497,, not breach of fiduciary duty.
“Plaintiff’s claim for legal malpractice in connection with an underlying settlement fails to state a cause of action…
Legal Malpractice and Judiciary Law 487 in a Nutshell
It is not often you get a short precise decision which lays out what and how a Legal Malpractice and a Judiciary Law 487 case may be proven, but Gorbatov v Tsirelman 2017 NY Slip Op 07979 [155 AD3d 836] November 15, 2017 Appellate Division, Second Department is just that.
“The plaintiff Yevgeny Gorbatov is…
Duplicitive and Gone
The trilogy of claims in a legal-professional negligence setting are legal malpractice, breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty. Claims are duplicitive if they arise from the same set of facts and claim the same or similar damages. We think that a legal malpractice claim which seeks the value of a lost asset or…
Here is a Law School Exam on Choice of Law and Jurisdiction
Some important facts are proffered late in the case description, but Aybar v Cohen, Placitella & Roth, PC 2018 NY Slip Op 50278(U) decided on February 28, 2018 Supreme Court, Queens County, McDonald, J. is a question of jurisdiction and choice-of-law as often comes up in auto accidents in far-off states. This question raises the…
More Than A Mere Disciplinary Violation
A disciplinary violation, without more, cannot support a legal malpractice case. The lesson of Arga Capital, Inc. v Kreiner & Kreiner LLC February 23, 2018 Supreme Court, New York County
Docket Number: 651649/2014 Judge: Saliann Scarpulla is that a conflict of interest coupled with demonstrable negligence can definitely support a legal malpractice claim.
“Arga is…
It All Started As A Fee Dispute
Exeter Law Group LLP v Immortalana Inc. 2018 NY Slip Op 01269 Decided on February 22, 2018 Appellate Division, First Department started as a fee dispute. It now continues into the Appellate Division as a full blown legal malpractice case with third-party defendants. Perversely, attorneys who gave favorable affidavits to Plaintiff are now third-party defendants.…
It May Be A Good Lawsuit, But Not Here
Homeward Residential., Inc. v Thompson Hine LLP 2018 NY Slip Op 30325(U) February 22, 2018 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 156730/2017 Judge: Arlene P. Bluth claims that when Plaintiff was successfully sued in Georgia, its attorney failed to cite a local rule which limited punitive damages. As a result, instead of the limited…