If one reads enough litigation cases, the frequency of intra-family discord over money is striking. If one speaks with potential clients, the frequency is even more striking. Brother against brother, sibling against sibling and parents against children are more the norm than the exception. Kaplan v Valley Natl. Bank 2016 NY Slip Op 51108(U) Decided
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.
Sophisticated Parties, Complex Facts, No Legal Malpractice Case
Can there be a more complex financial undertaking than getting involved in new stock offerings for a China coal company? The due diligence was assigned to the defendants as well as Kroll Investigators. Kroll seems to have gotten it right, while both the attorneys and the client missed the most obvious notes written into the…
What Was Pled, What Was Not Pled
Plaintiff pled a Judiciary Law § 487 claim, but it did not survive a motion to dismiss. The Appellate Division reviews. What did it have before it, and how does it proceed?
Gumarova v Law Offs. of Paul A. Boronow, P.C. 2015 NY Slip Op 05155 [129 AD3d 911]
June 17, 2015 Appellate Division, Second…
Contribution and Indemnity in Legal Malpractice
Contribution is the concept that one party might owe another party the obligation to share in the bad times…and to be financially responsible for a claim or verdict against the first party. It matters whether the claim is for tort or contract. In legal malpractice the lines are blurred, but when the contribution is for…
A Seizure, A Coffee Burn, A New Trial
The setting for this case is a medical malpractice case in Saratoga County. The lesson of this case is that jury instructions are very, very important, and attorneys must do everything necessary to preserve objections to what they consider incorrect instructions.
Vallone v Saratoga Hosp. 2016 NY Slip Op 05526 Decided on July 14, 2016 …
Escrow Agents, Attorneys and Breach of Fiduciary Duty
The conduct is not easily explainable. A law firm is hired to become escrow agent for a real estate venture, and to earn fees while preparing and filing mortgages. Inexplicably, the law firm simply stops filing the mortgages. The result is predictable.
TSR Group, LLC v Levitin 2016 NY Slip Op 31322(U) July 13, 2016 …
The Opinion Letter and Legal Malpractice
One of the unique elements of legal malpractice is the requirement of privity. Privity of contract (or representation) is an ancient concept, which states that only those in direct contract may be held responsible for harm. It is the opposite of generalized tort liability. Familiar to law students, privity giving way to generalized tort liability…
Down But Not Out, Continued
Last week we looked at the statute of limitations in legal malpractice and how that interacted with CPLR 203 which allowed a counterclaim as an offset. Lewis, Brisbois, Bisgaard & Smith, LLP v Law Firm of Howard Mann 2016 NY Slip Op 05487 Decided on July 13, 2016
Appellate Division, Second Department also has a…
Down But Not Out in a Legal Malpractice Counterclaim
Law firms traditionally wait three years and a day before suing for unpaid legal fees, and fall into the gap between the three year statute for a feared legal malpractice counterclaim and the six year statute for contract claims. So was the case in Lewis, Brisbois, Bisgaard & Smith, LLP v Law Firm of Howard …
An Ancient Statute is Put To A New Use
Judiciary Law § 487 is an ancient statute, emanating from long-ago England centuries before Brexit. In Charles Deng Acupuncture, P.C. v Titan Ins. Co. 2016 NY Slip Op 26211 Decided on June 30, 2016 Civil Court Of The City Of New York, Kings County Montelione, J. we see (what appears to us) a unique and…