It’s a common enough scenario. Home buyer (not a professional) wants to buy what looks like a bargain. Home buyer goes to an attorney and the closing takes place. Problem? ECB as judgments against the property which don’t get taken care of, the neighbor has a right to use the driveway and there are structural
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.
This Is A Rare “Speculation” Case
When a legal malpractice claim requires that the Court decide how a non-party would have acted, th Court often calls this “speculation.” Examples are: what would the other side have done if a specific offer had been made? How would a court have decided an issue which was never raised? How much would another driver…
“A” Proximate Cause v. Sole Proximate Cause
What, exactly, is the standard by which legal malpractice proximate cause is measured? Remember, legal malpractice is the sole area of the law in which an additional burden is placed upon the plaintiff: the “but for” requirement. New York State Workers’ Compensation Bd. v Program Risk Mgt., Inc. 2017 NY Slip Op 04184 Decided on…
Some of the Dangers of Pro-Se Litigation
Litigation is a major-league sport. It can be dangerous, and there can be injuries. Even when a talented amateur gets involved, there can still be basic problems which remain unsolved. DeMartino v Golden 2017 NY Slip Op 04253 Decided on May 31, 2017 Appellate Division, Second Department is an example where two intersecting problems caused…
Both Sides Lose in a Real Estate – Legal Malpractice Case
An error is made at a closing, and the other side takes advantage of the error. May the attorney say something like: “Sure…I made a mistake, but the intervening event was the other side taking advantage” ? Not in this case.
Ragunandan v Donado 2017 NY Slip Op 04306 Decided on May 31, 2017 Appellate…
The Off-Hand Comment Was Merely Dicta
Bringing a legal malpractice case based upon a badly handled legal malpractice case is a perilous situation. Worse still if there is an ambiguous decision upon which it is all based. So it was in 4777 Food Servs. Corp. v Anthony P. Gallo, P.C. 2017 NY Slip Op 04086 Decided on May 24, 2017 Appellate…
With No Explanation, An Affirmance
Sometimes a court decision tells a story. Sometimes, not. Richmond Holdings, LLC v David S. Frankel, P.C. 2017 NY Slip Op 04160 Decided on May 24, 2017 Appellate Division, Second Department recites an important (if well understood) standard of legal malpractice, but leaves the reader clueless. “To sustain a cause of action alleging legal malpractice,…
Start With a Bad Foundation…
It may be just one townhouse on 18th Street, but the ramifications of a bad “underpinning” to a foundation go on and on. In Bose v Think Constr. LLC 2017 NY Slip Op 30944(U)
May 4, 2017 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 154628/2015 Judge Cynthia S. Kern (just yesterday elevated to the Appellate…
A Huge Tax Deduction Loss and Third-Party Claims
Really, the numbers boggle. Clients collectively lost a $3 Million tax deduction when one of the trustees, without telling anyone else, waived the claim. A professional malpractice claim followed in 1993 Trust of Joan Cohen v Baum 2017 NY Slip Op 30894(U) May 2, 2017 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 150058/2015 Judge: Shirley…
The Successor Counsel Principle, Illustrated
Common to legal malpractice litigations are changes to attorney representation during the underlying case. These changes of attorneys raise not only the statute of limitations, but also the successor counsel principle. Hufstader v Friedman & Molinsek, P.C. 2017 NY Slip Op 03996
Decided on May 18, 2017 Appellate Division, Third Department is an excellent example.…