On its face a very straightforward if odd case. Plaintiff serves a summons with notice and then fails to file a complaint when a demand is made. The case is dismissed. But, a quick look at WebCivilSupreme indicates that plaintiff has sued many a law firm, including Steven Louros, Greenberg Traurig, LLP, Meltzer Lippe Goldstein
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.
A Decisive Victory in a Massive Legal Malpractice Case…Will Plaintiff Actually Collect?
Disbarred lawyers, millions diverted, fraud, malpractice and missing money. It’s a horrible story, and Plaintiffs are out $ 4.5 million. They have been awarded summary judgment. Will they ever collect?
135 Bowery LLC v Sofer 2016 NY Slip Op 31012(U) June 2, 2016 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 108020/2011 Judge: O. Peter Sherwood…
Extremely Sophisticated Clients, Extremely Sophisticated Attorneys and Judiciary Law 487
Justice Kornreich defends the integrity and reach of New York courts in GE Oil & Gas, Inc. v Turbine Generation Servs., L.L.C. 2016 NY Slip Op 50825(U) Decided on May 27, 2016
Supreme Court, New York County Kornreich, J. which is a high-level commercial case over the question of loan v. investment. Of interest to…
Picking The Right Kind Of Expert is So Important
Caso v Miranda Sambursky Slone Sklarin, Verveniotis LLP 2016 NY Slip Op 30965(U)
May 26, 2016 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 159192/2015 Judge: Carol R. Edmead is an example of a fact studded complaint which alleges a cause of action, but then shreds under analysis by the Court. Was it because the wrong…
Sure, Plaintiff Pled a Good Case; It is dismissed nevertheless
Caso v Miranda Sambursky Slone Sklarin, Verveniotis LLP 2016 NY Slip Op 30965(U)
May 26, 2016 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 159192/2015 Judge: Carol R. Edmead is an example of a well pled complaint which shreds at the CPLR 3211 stage. Today, we examine the underlying claimed departures and how the Court treated…
Alleging but Losing A Legal Malpractice Case
Caso v Miranda Sambursky Slone Sklarin, Verveniotis LLP 2016 NY Slip Op 30965(U)
May 26, 2016 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 159192/2015 Judge: Carol R. Edmead is an example of a well pled complaint which shreds at the CPLR 3211 stage. Tomorrow, we will examine the underlying claimed departures and how the Court…
Dismissal For Strategy and Discretion Gets Worse on Appeal
If it were not bad enough when Supreme Court dismissed almost all of the legal malpractice claims, in Sitomer v Goldweber Epstein, LLP 2016 NY Slip Op 04152 Decided on May 31, 2016
Appellate Division, First Department things got even worse when Plaintiff appealed. On this round the case was dismissed in its entirety.
The…
As Always, It’s the Proximate Cause Battle
Barouh v Law Offs. of Jason L. Abelove 2015 NY Slip Op 06769 [131 AD3d 988] September 16, 2015 Appellate Division, Second Department like so much of legal malpractice revolves around the question of proximate cause. Put another way, “sure a mistake was made” but so what. What was the demonstrable effect?
“In an action,…
They Consulted an Expert Yet Missed the Deadline
ITHACA: This story is right out of the news, and is not yet a court decision. Seneca County is at war with the Cayuga Indian Nation, and it’s over money, no surprise. Even less surprising, its over real estate and taxes. So, the question is whether the county may foreclose on certain property for the…
This is What Makes Legal Malpractice So Frustrating-Interesting-Different
McHenry v Bader, Yakaitis & Nonnenmacher, LLP 2015 NY Slip Op 25429 [50 Misc 3d 977] May 22, 2015 Billings, J. is a prime example of what makes the “but for” portion of legal malpractice so different. In this case, as in most we have experienced, the departure, or mistake is quite evident. It was…