Legal malpractice cases come up in all kinds of settings. It may be the individual personal injury plaintiff whose case was not started on time; it may be the car accident in which the doctor’s reports failed to give the necessary descriptions of the injury and the case was dismissed, and sometimes it can be
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.
A New Rule For Legal Malpractice and Appeals
Up to today, the rule in legal malpractice litigation has been that Plaintiff was not required to appeal from a decision in order to sue his attorney. That all changed today with the Court of Appeals decision in Grace v Law 2014 NY Slip Op 07089 Decided on October 21, 2014 Court of Appeals…
Is It Partnership Fraud or Individual Fraud in this Legal Malpractice Case?
Attorneys represent individual client for a personal injury case. The attorneys also represent two companies that are run by the individual. The PI case settles and the attorneys want to apply the settlement monies against the bills for the company’s commercial litigation. It all goes wrong thereafter.
Salazar v Sacco & Fillas, LLP 2014 NY Slip…
You Did Well Enough, Now Go Home
Courts do not apply legal malpractice law in a vacuum. Far more than in other areas of the law, Courts engage in finding ways to explain the attorney’s conduct, or in finding explanations. Fielding v Kupferman 2013 NY Slip Op 02008 [104 AD3d 580] March 26, 2013 Appellate Division, First Department is no exception. …
Try to Determine Why This Legal Malparctice Case Was Dismissed
Sure, the Second Department is busy, and there is a constant and steady stream of cases coming before it, 20 every day. Nevertheless, a couple of facts in the decision might help practitioners in their everyday legal lives.
Barker v Amorini 2014 NY Slip Op 06931 Decided on October 15, 2014 Appellate Division, Second…
Decision To Dismiss Unloved Legal Malpractice Case Reversed
Plaintiff hires attorneys to file a disability claim. Claim is denied. Plaintiff sues attorneys on the theory that they failed to file important proofs of his disability. Attorneys move to dismiss. Outcome? Motion granted and then reversed on appeal. Is this just another reflexive dismissal of an unloved legal malpractice case?
Biro v Roth 2014…
A Professional Negligence Case Falls on Professional Negligence
Attorneys suing land surveyors and then getting sued by attorneys. It’s a circular story, which discusses contribution and indemnity. In the end defendant cannot pass off the liability to a third-party, and must answer to the plaintiff. Alva v Gaines, Gruner, Ponzini & Novick, LLP 2014 NY Slip Op 06785 Decided on October 8…
A Reflexive Dismissal Reversed
We have noted in the past that legal malpractice cases are negatively viewed. They are dismissed, either on a CPLR 3211 basis or a CPLR 3212 basis more often than other negligence cases, and often reflexively. Harris Beach PLLC v Eber Bros. Wine & Liq. Corp. 2014 NY Slip Op 06704
Decided on October…
Using the Correct Procedure Defeats a Judiciary Law 487 Claim
In the recent past, a claim that attorney lied in motion papers filed seeking to be relieved as attorney has survived motion practice. This decision likely prodded plaintiff to bring Brady v Friedlander 2014 NY Slip Op 06677 Decided on October 2, 2014 Appellate Division, First Department. In this situation the First Department did not…
Legal Malpractice and Surrogate’s Court
Estate brings action against its attorneys, who successfully move to dismiss in Surrogate’s Court on the basis that the action was not "brought during the administration of an estate." Does this doom the legal malpractice and overbilling suit? Is an overbilling suit duplicitive of the legal malpractice claims. The answer is "no" in both instances.…