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.
Completing our review of the 2015 Judiciary Law§ 487 cases, Tooker v Schwartzberg 2015 NY Slip Op 31620(U) August 17, 2015 Supreme Court, Suffolk County Docket Number: 9463/14
allows Judge Paul J. Baisley to set forth the basic rules of Judiciary Law §487 as well as Fraud upon the Court.
First: the conclusion: “ORDERED that…
To be truthful, its son v. mom in one part of the case and son v. mom’s attorneys in the Judiciary Law 487 case. It’s sort of a tragedy. Mom had a medical malpractice case for bad breast reduction, and the case was started. While the case was going Dad died in a small plane-instruction…
Accounting malpractice, a sister to attorney malpractice has many of the same principles and doctrines as does legal malpractice. Interestingly, accounting malpractice has more of an episodic rhythm of yearly tax filings. A specialized set of statute of limitations rules applies to the tax year filings. Here, however, the accounting firm was sued for its…
When a retail establishement (say, a restaurant) is sold, there is a well-known problem of sales tax. Some will definitely be owed to the government, at least that amount since the last quarterly payment. There may also be unpaid sales tax liability. A well-settled procedure is set down in statute, and if followed allows the…
Was it Mark Twain who said that if you represent yourself, you have a fool for a client? Perhaps Abraham Lincoln? No matter…The Appellate Division implicitly said so today, and dismissed a legal malpractice and Judiciary Law § 487 claim made by a lawyer who, they implied, ought to have known better than to say…
O’Neil’s, a defunct restaurant, wanted to move on after the founder’s death. They hired a law firm which had clients that wanted to take over the space. The law firm represented both sides, and as one might expect, one side was unhappy with the outcome. The long-running successful restaurant still owed $ 1.5 million in…
Judiciary Law §487, which regulates and punishes attorney deceit is a statute which is not “light granted.” In this case, we see that the mere production of fraudulent documents may not be enough to hold the producing attorneys under the statute.
Specialized Indus. Servs. Corp. v Carter 2015 NY Slip Op 06912 [131 AD3d 1162] …
Professional is hired to examine accounts. In this case it was a CPA who was hired to look into a situation in which there was unexpected cash flow for a Municipality. The CPA reviewed some documents and said he could find nothing. Is that the end of the story? What happens when it’s discovered that…
Shaffer v Gilberg 2015 NY Slip Op 00865 [125 AD3d 632] February 4, 2015 Appellate Division, Second Department shows you how deadly matrimonial litigation can get. Wife suddenly produces notes for all the money that her parents gave to the couple, and claims that she owes the parents $ 629,000 or so, and that husband…
Judiciary Law § 487 is the attorney deceit statute, of ancient origin. It permits treble damages arising from attorney deceit, yet is rarely granted. Savitt v Greenberg Traurig, LLP 2015 NY Slip Op 02003 [126 AD3d 506] March 12, 2015 Appellate Division, First Department is one example. The Court recognizes that something went on, but…
