Trials are not perfect, and Country Park Child Care, Inc. v Smartdesign Architecture PLLC 2015 NY Slip Op 05341 [129 AD3d 1636] June 19, 2015 Appellate Division, Fourth Department shows just how imperfect they can be. References in testimony to settlement, to settlement demands, and a battle of the experts ends in a verdict of
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.
Professional Negligence – Both Contract and Tort
There are many differences between contract liability and tort liability. One difference is the scope of persons to whom a duty applies. In contract the question of privity looms over every analysis; in tort, it is almost the entire world. Another difference is the measurement of damages. In contract damages are generally related to the…
For A Multitude of Reasons This Legal Malpractice Case Fails
Privity, a concept which applies to almost no contractual relationships anymore, is the overriding reason that the legal malpractice claims in this case were dismissed. Once upon a time, privity was necessary in order to win a products liability case. No more is it necessary. Once upon a time, privity was necessary in a variety…
Our Statute of Limitations Article in the NY Law Journal
We’re proud to post a new article that appeared in the New York Law Journal today on The Statute of Limitations in Legal Malpractice.
A new development in the legal malpractice world is the rise of arbitration clauses in retainer agreements. Will it change the landscape?
Privity and the Law of Legal Malpractice
DSW Lenox LLC v Rosetree on Lenox Ave. LLC 2015 NY Slip Op 32244(U) November 23, 2015 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 652786/2011 Judge: Saliann Scarpulla is an example of the principal of privity and how it affects a legal malpractice case. DSW was a 30% owner of a condominium at 381 Lenox…
Whether Architects or Attorneys, There is a Strict Statute of Limitations
797 Broadway Group, LLC v Stracher Roth Gilmore Architects 2014 NY Slip Op 08689 [123 AD3d 1250] December 11, 2014 Appellate Division, Third Department discusses when and how a professional relationship between an architect and a client begins, ends, and the terms upon which the architect serves. There are “design-build” agreements and more simple ones…
A Host of Mistakes, Small and Large in this Legal Malpractice Case
Kaplan v Khanna 2015 NY Slip Op 25158 [48 Misc 3d 665] May 15, 2015 Braun, J. illustrates a virtual compendium of errors in litigation. Starting with making up the names of statutes, and failing to serve a complaint within 120 days, trying to sue a criminal defense attorney for mistakes without “actual innocence alleged,…
What Do You Claim, When You Can’t Claim Malpractice?
In a professional services setting, (in this case an accountant) when you can’t claim malpractice, you claim fraud. Malpractice in this case was not possible to claim, because there was no privilty, and the paper documents ruled out “near privity.”
Israel Discount Bank of N.Y. v EisnerAmper LLP 2014 NY Slip Op 51620(U) [45 Misc…
Yup, we screwed that up…so what?
Women’s Integrated Network, Inc. v Anderson Kill P.C. 2015 NY Slip Op 08500
Decided on November 19, 2015 Appellate Division, First Department illustrates the all-consuming aspect of legal malpractice that sets it aside from all other areas of the law…the “but for” need to prove what would have happened if the attorneys had not made…
It’s One Way Around the Privity Problem in Legal Malpractice
A restaurant is sold without the owner’s permission and it sues the attorney whom it says was involved in the sale. That case is dismissed, apparently on the ground that there was no attorney-client relationship between the corporation and the attorney. This illustrates the principal of privity which requires that there be an actual attorney-client…