We challenge you to make sense of this follie a deux. Sanko v Roth 2016 NY Slip Op 30930(U) May 17, 2016 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 650025/14
Judge: Gerald Lebovits. The defendant is either plaintiff’s attorney or not. He either started cases for plaintiff as his attorney or he did not. We
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.
Sometimes It’s The Little Things
The name is arresting and the crusade is notable. The entire case falls, once again, on a technicality. What happens when a complaint but no summons starts the case off? Dealy-Doe-Eyes Maddux v Schur 2016 NY Slip Op 03931 Decided on May 19, 2016 Appellate Division, Third Department tells us that:
“For more than a…
If You Don’t Have a Viable Case, Mistakes Really Don’t Matter
In a stark example of the “but for” element of legal malpractice, Hoffman v Colleluori
2016 NY Slip Op 03850 Decided on May 18, 2016 Appellate Division, Second Department stands for the principal of “no-harm, no-foul.” Put another way, if plaintiff could not have won the underlying case, mistakes matter not.
“In 2006, the plaintiff…
Settlements and Their Memorialization
Settlements in “open court” are one thing. They are enforceable just as they are. Anything else requires a signature. When the parties settled this matrimonial action using a court reporter in an attorney’s office they did not produce a document that was enforceable. This might very well be legal malpractice says the Second Department.
It Would Be Wrong To Bring the Suit; Attorney Then Sued for Not Starting the Suit
In a startling and ironic turn, a legal malpractice law firm sues an attorney for not doing something wrong. Wait, that sounds convoluted. Here is the story. Baer v Law Offs. of Moran & Gottlieb 2016 NY Slip Op 03799 Decided on May 12, 2016 Appellate Division, Third Department is about how an attorney took…
A Settlement Unravels and Confidentiality is Forever Lost
Catsiapis v Giano 2016 NY Slip Op 30863(U) May 11, 2016 Supreme Court, Queens County Docket Number: 21642/2012 Judge: Denis J. Butler is an example of overreach and how it can eventually undermine the entire project. Defendant attorneys almost always want a confidentiality clause, and will sometimes stretch out the negotiation on the basis that…
What Happens When Your Agent Dooms You to Legal Malpractice?
There are several variants of potential legal malpractice in Butler v inSync Litig. Support, LLC
2016 NY Slip Op 50757(U) Decided on May 4, 2016 Supreme Court, Nassau County Brown, J. The first is pled, the second is noted by the Court. In short, Plaintiff retains Attorney. More than one year, but less than three…
Failure to Look For Insurance Coverage May Be Legal Malpractice
Payment of attorney fees is a subject most solemn to attorneys, and a subject of great exasperation to clients. What happens if you are sued, hire a set of attorneys to defend you and then discover that you had insurance which would have provided a free defense and the attorneys failed to discover or push…
A Different Approach to Legal Malpractice and Overbilling
It’s the first time we have seen this approach. Plaintiff sues for a declaratory judgment that Defendant attorneys overbilled their client, as well as on claims of legal malpractice. In Berardi v Phillips Nizer, LLP 2016 NY Slip Op 30860(U) May 6, 2016 Supreme Court, New York County
Docket Number: 157690/2012 Judge: Nancy M. Bannon…
A Familiar and Sad Story
Anderson v Armentano 2016 NY Slip Op 03690 Decided on May 11, 2016 Appellate Division, Second Department is another telling of a sad but familiar story in which a Workers’ Compensation attorney allows the client to think that it is handling all aspects of the personal injury case, but is only handling the WC portion. …