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.
What exactly does it take to form an attorney-client relationship? When are services provided to a party susceptible of a claim of legal malpractice?
Exeter Law Group LLP v Wong 2016 NY Slip Op 32190(U) October 26, 2016 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 161667/2014 Judge: Eileen A. Rakower tells us that: “”To determine…
Billiard Balls Mgt., LLC v Mintzer Sarowitz Zeris Ledva & Meyers, LLP 2016 NY Slip Op 26356 Decided on November 2, 2016 Supreme Court, New York County Edmead, J. is an application of a 200 year old case to a question of timeliness. When does the statute of limitations commence for a legal malpractice case…
Resnick v Abelow 2016 NY Slip Op 32197(U) October 26, 2016 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 654313/2015 Judge: Eileen A. Rakower is the very rare legal malpractice case that starts off with a request for a default judgment. Typically attorneys have malpractice insurance which mitigates against defaults. Here, as almost always, something has…
Plaintiff, a corporation hires and relies on Defendant, and the advice given to outsource human resources and benefits to a third party which takes funds from plaintiff for payment of payroll taxes, then fails to pay the taxing authorities and (surprisingly?) becomes insolvent.
Aside from the plethora of contract issues, is there professional negligence (with…
Two things stand out in the Bernie Madoff spin-off case. The first is that everyone involved has been determined to be a wrongdoer, and the second is that the case should have taken place in the Netherlands.
In New Greenwich Litig. Trustee, LLC v Citco Fund Servs. (Europe) B.V. 2016 NY Slip Op 06796 Decided…
Centre Lane Partners, LLC v Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom Llp 2016 NY Slip Op 32136(U) October 21, 2016 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 651721/16
Judge: Barry Ostrager explains the borrowing statute in the dismissal of this legal malpractice case which took place in Oregon.
“The underlying facts are as follows. For…
No, not the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Arbitration Act. The NY Court of Appeals ruled this year that almost every arbitration comes under its umbrella. Cusimano v Schnurr
2015 NY Slip Op 09232 [26 NY3d 391] December 16, 2015 Lippman, Ch. J. Court of Appeals. Plaintiffs played a dangerous game. Did they win or…
The scene was charged with energy. A newly off-the-bench Federal District Judge was arguing in the First Department Appellate Division. The issue was a situation in which a client had sued the law firm for legal malpractice in US District Court and the law firm had started a declaratory judgment action in state court seeking…
You might call this bootstrapping; Plaintiffs called it proper discovery. Note that the claim was said to be late on earlier motions; now plaintiff gets to add claims for very old audits in this accounting malpractice action.
In Conway v Marcum & Kliegman LLP 2016 NY Slip Op 31933(U) October 11, 2016 Supreme Court, New…
We are proud to showcase today’s Outside Counsel Column in the NYLJ “The ‘But For’ Black Hole in Legal Malpractice” written by Andrew Lavoott Bluestone.
