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.
First Cent. Sav. Bank v Parentebeard, LLC 2017 NY Slip Op 30974(U) May 10, 2017
Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 653680/2014 Judge: Shirley Werner Kornreich discusses the burden a defendant has in a professional negligence case.
“In short, this case concerns the IRS’ s disallowance of $2,514, 143 in net operating losses
(the…
Accountants and stock-financial advisers are professionals for the purpose of the statute of limitations. For this reason the doctrine of “continuous representation” can apply. Reville v Melvin Ginsberg & Assoc. 2017 NY Slip Op 30821(U) April 20, 2017 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 152167/2015 Judge: Joan M. Kenney gives some explanation on how…
Judiciary Law §487, perhaps the oldest rule (it’s the common law, not a statute) comes up in Unclaimed Prop. Recovery Serv., Inc. v Credit Suisse First Boston Corp.
2018 NY Slip Op 30150(U) January 25, 2018 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 653009/2013 Judge: Saliann Scarpulla, but then it disappears. This is a contract…
As a defense to a claim of over-billing or breach of fiduciary duty, the attorneys often argue that the client paid some bills and then stopped, allowing for the “voluntary payment” doctrine to refute the claims. Dubrow v Herman & Beinin 2018 NY Slip Op 00478 Decided on January 25, 2018
Appellate Division, First Department…
In one of the few applications of Grace v. Law to date, Supreme Court dismisses a legal malpractice case. More than this rare application of Grace, the court dismisses on a question of law.
The facts are simple in Dinerman v Fox 2018 NY Slip Op 30127(U) January 16, 2018 Supreme Court, Kings County Docket…
The decision in Krigsman v Goldberg 2018 NY Slip Op 30104(U) January 19, 2018 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 151271 /16 Judge: Manuel J. Mendez reads like a Dickens novel in which litigation goes on until no one has any money left to litigate over. Widow litigates over the will until she dies,…
A recurring theme in legal malpractice litigation is discovery of communications between the client and attorneys. While the attorney-client privilege is waived in a legal malpractice setting between plaintiff-client and defendant-attorney, the question still comes up with subsequent attorneys. Different from the attorney-client privilege is the common-interest privilege. Saint Annes Dev. Co. v Russ 2018…
Plaintiff may have had a good claim against his accountants, maybe not. The merits will not be reached because of an unusual choice of venues, and the method by which the case was first brought in NY County and then in Westchester County. The choices caused a procedural catastrophy.
DeMartino v Golden 2017 NY Slip Op 04253 [150 AD3d 1200] May 31, 2017 Appellate Division, Second Department shows what happens when a case starts out pro-se, attorneys get substituted in and then everything goes wrong. The summons and complaint were served with a corporation and limited liability company were plaintiffs but were unrepresented. Defendant…
Roth v Rubinstein & Rubinstein LLP 2018 NY Slip Op 30038(U) January 8, 2018 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 154855/16 Judge: Lynn R. Kotler is a story that Hitchcock could have filmed. Husband and wife make a lot (really a lot) of money in business, and then after all that, the husband is…
