Andrew Lavoott Bluestone

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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.

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Judiciary Law § 487 is (perhaps) the oldest statute in existence here in New York.  It descends from the first Statute of Westminster, which was adopted by the Parliament summoned by King Edward I of England in 1275.  It has been in effect from the founding of our country.  The statute reads:

“Misconduct by Attorneys…

The family is large, and the husband has been married at least twice.  There are adult children from the first marriage, and the husband has significant sums of money.  What is this?  It is a recipe for internecine war;  of course, it is over money.   Did Dad fraudulently and wrongfully give the adult kids money…

Yesterday, we spoke about commercial litigation, intra-company claims and how minority shareholders can bring claims that attorneys for the corporation or the majority shareholders have wronged them.  Yesterday, it was “legal malpractice.”  Today it’s “breach of fiduciary duty.”

Exeter Law Group LLP v Wong  2016 NY Slip Op 32425(U)  December 9, 2016 Supreme Court, New…

In the world of commercial litigation, intra-company claims often morph into legal malpractice cases.  In LLCs one member may go against another member, in corporations, boards can split into majority/minority groups, each pitted against the other.  When the LLC or the Corporation hired an attorney, to whom does that attorney owe an obligation?  Put another…

Attorneys have duties to clients, in the nature of a fiduciary duty. Professionals other than doctors have duties to their clients/customers in varying levels.  Pharmacists, who are professionals owe an independent duty to persons for whom they fill a prescription…don’t they?  Well…not really, even though the profession of pharmacology is traced back to ancient Egypt…

Weinstein v CohnReznick, LLP  2016 NY Slip Op 08068  Decided on November 30, 2016
Appellate Division, Second Department is an example of the Second Department Appellate Division dicing a Suffolk County dismissal into component parts. and keeping one claim alive.

Plaintiffs essentially sued the accountants for a group that took them over.  Was there sufficient…

When reading an Appellate Division decision, the tone and subject matter rapidly indicate that the case is a pro-se legal malpractice litigation, as the participants spend inordinate amounts of time debating useless issues.  As an example, Hyman v Pierce 2016 NY Slip Op 08272 Decided on December 8, 2016 Appellate Division, Third Department deals entirely…