Last week we discussed two 2d Department decisions on the issue of settlement and a subsequent legal malpractice case. Today, a new decision from the Third Department. Schrowang v Biscone 2015 NY Slip Op 03910 Decided on May 7, 2015 Appellate Division, Third Department brings up a familiar trope in matrimonial law. Attorneys are
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.
Effectively Compelled Settlements and Legal Malpractice
At least in the Second Department, the principal that a claim for legal malpractice is viable, despite settlement of the underlying action, if it is alleged that settlement of the action was effectively compelled by mistakes of counsel. In the First Department, a line of cases has arisen which undercuts that principal. The Second Department…
What is “At Issue” and What is not in a Legal Malpractice Setting?
Attorney-client communications are privileged, and not open to discovery in general. In a legal malpractice case, the rules are somewhat relaxed. If the attorney client communications are “at issue” they are discoverable. To the extent that Plaintiff relied upon these communications to make decisions about the underlying case for which he is suing the attorneys,…
The End of a Legal Malpractice Case
After years of circuitous meandering the Raghavendra action against Columbia University, its attorney and his own attorney has ended with a First Department decision in Raghavendra v Brill, 2015 NY Slip Op 03774 Decided on May 5, 2015. The take away from this case is that an attorney fee dispute/resolution will often moot the parallel…
$ 9.2 Million is Lost on an Invention; Not the Attorney’s Fault
Melnick v Farrell 2015 NY Slip Op 03658 Decided on May 1, 2015 Appellate Division, Fourth Department is an interesting case about upstate inventors, selling an invention to another company, protection in a future bankruptcy proceedings, and how a multi-million dollar asset can be lost without attorney malpractice.
“Memorandum: Plaintiffs commenced this legal malpractice action…
Johnson & Johnson Heirs v. Proskauer Rose LLP…The Numbers are Huge
Johnson v Proskauer Rose LLP 2015 NY Slip Op 03626 Decided on April 30, 2015 Appellate Division, First Department Mazzarelli, J., J. is the story of heirs who are seduced into an expensive tax avoidance scheme, only to lose millions. Whose fault is it? Is the story merely greedy heirs, or is it fraud by…
Is the Statute for Judiciary Law 487 Three Years or Six Years?
The Court of Appeals said that the statute of limitations for Judiciary Law § 487 is six years in Melcher v Greenberg Traurig, LLP 23 NY3d 10. Thus, even if a claim for attorney deceit originated in the first Statute of Westminster rather than preexisting English common law (a question unresolved by Amalfitano and disputed…
This May Be the First Full Application of Grace v. Law in a Legal Malpractice Case
We’ve written that Grace v. Law is a game-changer in the legal malpractice field. Previously, there was no obligation on plaintiff to undertake an appeal prior to commencing a legal malpractice case. Now, after Grace it’s a new world, and nothing illustrates that point better than Buczek v Dell & Little, LLP 2015 NY Slip…
A Long Simmering Slander Suit with a Huge Law Firm
Flomenhaft v Finkelstein 2015 NY Slip Op 03468 Decided on April 28, 2015 Appellate Division, First Department has been on the back burner for a long time, and now has again reached the First Department. Attorney Flomenhaft accuses Andrew Finkelstein of slander. Finkelstein is royalty in New York. “Defendant Andrew Finkelstein (Finkelstein) is an attorney…
Wild Investing for a Trust by an Attorney and His Firm
Bruges Realty, Corp. v Horowitz 2015 NY Slip Op 30634(U) April 17, 2015 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 651986/2010 Judge: Saliann Scarpulla is the story of overreaching by an attorney who has been given millions of dollars to invest for several trusts. He leaves his law firm, engages in investments not suitable for…