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.
Plaintiff’s child fell from a window. The window was in a multiple dwelling and there was no window guard. The building had no insurance, and the owner eventually took off. Was there legal malpractice in Plaintiff’s attorney failing to file a lis pendens or to seek pre-judgment attachment?
The short answer is no, which illustrates…
Plaintiff is sued in Civil Court for attorney fees. She counterclaims for legal malpractice. She then goes on to sue in Supreme Court for legal malpractice where her complaint is dismissed. What happens to the Civil Court case?
Law Offs. of D’Amico & Assoc., PLLC v D’Elia 2014 NY Slip Op 51242(U) Decided on…
For summary judgment purposes, an expert is an expert and is good enough . No? In legal malpractice, an attorney, duly licensed, is good enough to comment on the work of another attorney? No?
Not for Judge Buggs. In Gonzalez v Flushing Hosp. Med. Ctr. 2014 NY Slip Op 51226(U)
Decided on August…
in a huge note-issuance transaction, Stonebridge Capital LLC hires Brown Rudnick LLP to prepare the documents. The attorney handling the case moves from BR to Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP and, of course, the transaction goes sour. The wrinkle here is that BR and a typical retainer agreement with plaintiff while SS&L had an…
Hospital and Physician are sued for medical malpractice. The Med Mal case is as big as they come…a brain damaged baby case. How it ends up in Civil Court is an interesting story. In Gonzalez v Flushing Hosp. Med. Ctr. 2014 NY Slip Op 51226(U) Decided on August 12, 2014
Civil Court Of The…
Immigration legal practice is rife with accusations of neglect, lack of knowledge and incompetence. INS practice is based almost completely on forms, and knowing when and what to include with the ever-changing forms is the essence of good immigration legal work. Attorneys often fail their immigration clients by telling them, in essence, "don’t worry."
Shayan …
Daughter works for a law firm, and hears of a financial opportunity. She gets her parents involved, and surprise…the loans do not work out! They sue the law firm for legal malpractice. Rodolico v Rubin & Licatesi, P.C. 2013 NY Slip Op 08068 [112 AD3d 608] December 4, 2013
Appellate Division, Second Department stands for…
Daughter works for a law firm, and hears of a financial opportunity. She gets her parents involved, and surprise…the loans do not work out! They sue the law firm for legal malpractice. Rodolico v Rubin & Licatesi, P.C. 2013 NY Slip Op 08068 [112 AD3d 608] December 4, 2013
Appellate Division, Second Department stands…
For social policy reasons, and probably to prevent wide-spread suits against opposing attorneys which might swamp the system, a legal malpractice complaint must allege an attorney-client relationship in order to survive. This question of privity is the first of several thresholds that a plaintiff must cross. In Mr. San, LLC v Zucker & Kwestel, …
Dombrowski v Bulson 2012 NY Slip Op 04203 [19 NY3d 347] May 31, 2012 Lippman, Ch. J. Court of Appeals was a very important case in legal malpractice, which held that "an award of nonpecuniary damages is generally unavailable to a plaintiff in an action for attorney malpractice." It was not wholly unprecedented. Prior…
