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.
Judiciary Law § 487 claims do not generally get to a jury. In Dupree v Voorhees
2017 NY Slip Op 06062 Decided on August 9, 2017 Appellate Division, Second Department a 12 year old case, which long ago raised new issues in Judiciary Law § 487 ended with a non-jury verdict.
In Dupree, the 487…
World wide investor signs contracts for a number of Trump condos, and then loses it all. How could this happen? The answer is that 10 years went by while the pre-case issues simmered. In the end, none of the attorneys will be held responsible.
Soloway v Kane Kessler, PC 2017 NY Slip Op 50992(U) Decided…
There are certain areas of the law which are reserved to the federal courts. These areas of law arise because the relevant law is found in federal statutes, or because the area which was previously spread across both state and federal statute or common law has become preempted by later federal statutes or case law. …
Yesterday, we reviewed the first go-round in Mrs. Weinberg’s litigation to undo the sale of two buildings, one of which was her family home for the past 50 years. Today, in Weinberg v Kaminsky 2017 NY Slip Op 31628(U) August 4, 2017 Supreme Court, New York County
Docket Number: 150869/2017 Judge: Manuel J. Mendez, we…
Looking back at Weinberg v Sultan 2016 NY Slip Op 05939 [142 AD3d 767] September 1, 2016
the question before the Appellate Division, First Department seems to have been was whether plaintiff was duped or not, and whether her former son-in-law took a large “consulting fee” and did so to her detriment. Whether former sons-in-law…
Matter of Ginsburg 2016 NY Slip Op 07733 [144 AD3d 1357] November 17, 2016 Appellate Division, Third Department is a sad story of despair overlaid with a sordid story of attorney fee grasping. In the end, not a lot was accomplice. The decision gives some practical advice on settlements and attorney retention.
“On February 17,…
Dec v BFM Realty, LLC 2017 NY Slip Op 05936 Decided on August 2, 2017 Appellate Division, Second Department is a legal malpractice and fraud case dismissed (after a number of years of litigation) in Kings County. It alleged fraud and judiciary law § 487 violation. Summary judgment was granted against Plaintiff. Trying to glean…
A personal injury takes place, and is litigated. It goes to verdict which exceeds the insurance coverage. What is a defendant to do? Well, one solution is a bad faith litigation against the carrier, and an assignment to the plaintiff. Plaintiff gets the chance to obtain the balance (over the policy limits) from the insurer,…
Plaintiff was working in the movie industry. He and the movie company came to a parting, and a separation agreement was produced between him and the company, negotiated by the company’s CEO. Later Plaintiff was not paid his equity investments and did not get certain credits. Board is unhappy with the deal itself, and blames…
In legal malpractice there are transactional representations and there are litigation representation. It’s easier to show privity when the attorney has signed on as attorney of record. It’s more difficult when the attorney may/may not be involved in a transactional setting. Breslin v Raich, Ende, Malter & Co., LLP 2016 NY Slip Op 32015(U) July…
