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.
Pari Delicto or unclean hands is a principal that the courts should not decide between wrongdoers. When may the court use this principal to wipe the board clean and allow no-one to bring a legal malpractice or a judiciary law 487 claim?
In Savitt v Greenberg Traurig, LLP 2015 NY Slip Op 02003 Decided on…
When does Continuous representation end? Sometimes a matter of days can be decisive. In Alizio v Ruskin Moscou Faltischek, P.C. 2015 NY Slip Op 01909 Decided on March 11, 2015 Appellate Division, Second Department it was the difference between April 20 and May 10. If continuous representation ended on April 20 the complaint was…
When does continuing representation end? In the absence of a bright line rule, the Courts and practitioners have to rely upon arguments that the representation continued while there was a continuing relationship of trust and confidence and a shared understanding of the need for more work on the case. An alternative bright line rule might…
CLEs on professional malpractice always discuss the question of whether attorney fee claims trigger legal malpractice counterclaims. They do. Sometimes the counterclaim is unwarranted. Often it is not. The coupling of fee claim-malpractice counterclaim stains the entire field. Attorneys commonly brand all legal malpractice as fee-avoidance or, at best, misguided emotional response. Anyway…
In general, the rule in legal malpractice claims after a criminal prosecution is that the plaintiff must show “actual innocence” in order to sue the criminal defense attorney. This principal prevents 99% of criminal defendants from proceeding. Meralla v Goldenberg 2015 NY Slip Op 01873 Decided on March 5, 2015 Appellate Division, First Department is…
Leser v Multi Capital Group LLC 2015 NY Slip Op 50272(U) Decided on March 2, 2015 Supreme Court, Kings County
Demarest, J. reads like a poorly conceived story of corporate greed. It does teach several important lessons in legal malpractice. The first is how essential privity of contract between the attorney and the client remains. …
Client has a problem selling his house in upstate New York because many many years before, his father did not record the deed. He makes a deal with buyer and agrees to a reduction in price if he cannot present good title. He hires an attorney to quiet title, and asks whether it can be…
In a fairly normal fashion, without much to indicate why the pleading was good enough, Supreme Court, Kings County has denied a CPLR 3211 motion to dismiss in Farkas v Mascolo
2015 NY Slip Op 01605 Decided on February 25, 2015 Appellate Division, Second Department.
“On a motion pursuant to CPLR 3211(a)(7) to dismiss a…
Armstrong v Blank Rome LLP 2015 NY Slip Op 01755 Decided on March 3, 2015 Appellate Division, First Department is an example of a well-pled 487 claim. It remains in the case after a motion to dismiss. Note the small zinger at the end of the decision regarding “appealability.”
“The complaint states a claim for…
Greenberg v Hertzfeld & Rubin, P.C. 2015 NY Slip Op 30268(U) February 25, 2015 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 650960/2014 Judge: Debra A. James is a good example of the microscopic nature of Supreme Court’s review of a legal malpractice complaint for standing and retainer contract issues. The case involves a web of…
