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.
Attorney is retained to handle a specific task. Attorney handles that task. That’s the end of that particular job. Related complications arise later. Plaintiff consults with the attorney on the issue, but the attorney is not retained to represent either party in the complications. How does “continuing representation” handle this situation?
Mahran v Berger 2016…
The proper response is admissible evidence to show that client timely objected and even better, to show that the attorneys made significant mistakes. This is exactly what happened in Jaspan Schlesinger, LLP v Neuberg 2016 NY Slip Op 02057 Decided on March 23, 2016 Appellate Division, Second Department. The Second Department does not take the…
Oliveto Holdings, Inc. v Denis W. Light, PLLC 2016 NY Slip Op 02063 Decided on March 23, 2016 Appellate Division, Second Department decided yesterday is a case much more complicated than the Second Department decision suggests, In the Supreme Court decision and order the court recognizes that there was a foreclosure action started and lost…
For the most part, in a legal malpractice setting, claims for Breach of Contract or Fraud are viewed as vestigial hangers-on to the most important part of the animal, the LM claim. For the most part, that analysis is correct. The Breach of Contract, or Breach of Fiduciary Duty or Fraud claims are generally restatements…
In matrimonial litigation, cases routinely end with an in-court settlement which includes an allocution of the parties. Husband and wife are both asked whether they understand the settlement, and importantly, whether they “are satisfied with the work of their attorney.” In a line of cases the First Department has writeen (as in Harvey v. Greenberg)…
From time to time the appellate divisions decide cases and introduce “stray” or previously unstated standards. Whether this is merely a “restatement” of a previously enunciated standard of when the 487 claim may be brought in a new proceeding versus when it must be brought in the underlying proceedings is up in the air. Previously,…
Legal malpractice litigation gets a bad name when critics can point to cases such as Lipin v Hunt
2016 NY Slip Op 01746 Decided on March 10, 2016 Appellate Division, First Department. More like Moby Dick than reasoned litigation, Plaintiff ends up prevented from starting any new cases about her father’s estate. How did the…
OK, the title to this blog entry is a tad cynical, but what other course might plaintiffs in this case have had. They purchased a residential property on Clinton Street in Brooklyn. Let’s assume its a town house in Brooklyn Heights, and they spent, perhaps $ 5 million. Then they discover that the prior seller…
This case is puzzling. Manhattan Sports Rests. of Am., LLC v Lieu 2016 NY Slip Op 01617
Decided on March 8, 2016 Appellate Division, First Department First, the attorneys. Both plaintiff’s and defendant’s law firms are unusual for a case of this type. Second, the facts are bizarre.
“Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Peter…
Today we once again look at Doviak v Finkelstein & Partners, LLP 2016 NY Slip Op 01636
Decided on March 9, 2016 Appellate Division, Second Department, this time for the question of spoliation in a legal malpractice setting. What happens when a particular piece of paper assumes enormous importance and might require forensic testing for…
