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.
Portilla v Law Offs. of Arcia & Flanagan 2013 NY Slip Op 08606 [112 AD3d 901] December 26, 2013 Appellate Division, Second Department tells us that the golden rule for defendants wishing to have a legal malpractice case dismissed on summary judgment is:
"In an action to recover damages for legal malpractice, a…
The story has a potential for pathos. Attorney working for a law firm receives fee payments meant for the firm, and treats them as if a loan. Why? He has Parkinson’s disease, and perhaps needed the money. The payments continue until the law firm moves to withdraw as attorney because of non-payment.Client sues for legal…
The back and forth of this large commercial stock purchase agreement, and the money transfers that ensued have had us read the opinion several times. Even after multiple reads, we find the description of transfers still confusing. For our context, the legal malpractice case was time barred. However, in AQ Asset Mgt., LLC v Levine…
One of the ways in which legal malpractice is different from other torts is the requirement of privity of contract. This principal, which for the most part no longer exists for torts, is strictly enforced in legal malpractice. USHA SOHA Terrace, LLC v Robinson Brog Leinwand Greene Genovese & Gluck, P.C. 2014 NY Slip Op…
Motions to dismiss under CPLR 3211(a)(5) are often made in legal malpractice cases. One reason is that there is often a long latency period between the mistake and its surfacing. This latency period regularly leads to cases that are brought more than 3 years after the mistake. The continuous representation principal allows a plaintiff 3…
Plaintiff hears that a settlement offer had been made, and knows that his attorney did not convey a settlement offer. We all know that it can be malpractice for an attorney to fail to convey a settlement offer, so long as Plaintiff would have taken the offer. So, is this legal malpractice?
Not here, in…
Defendant A handles a case, and defects in service take place. Successor counsel has about 6 months until the statute lapses. Defendant 1 moves for dismissal. Defendant 2 opposes. Was there enough time for Defendant 2 to fix the problems, and if so, is Defendant 1 excused?
Grant v LaTrace 2014 NY Slip Op…
Plaintiff blames the attorney and the attorney blames the client. Someone was at fault for not appearing in court for the trial of this case. A motion to vacate fails. Was it because the motion was badly written, or because plaintiff-client had no excuse for the default?
Di Giacomo v Langella 2014 NY Slip…
Legal malpractice claims are often stated in both tort and in contract, and the general feeling is that a contract cause of action in legal malpractice will almost always be a duplicitive or disguised tort claim that warrants dismissal.
Not so inState of N.Y. Workers’ Compensation Bd. v Madden 2014 NY Slip Op…
Mizrahi v Adler 2014 NY Slip Op 31701(U) June 30, 2014 Sup Ct, NY County Docket Number: 650802/2010 Judge: O. Peter Sherwood is the rather sad story of a man and his attorney, who both took a Las Vegas detour into Trump real estate hell. Whether the attorney was a fellow traveler, or was…
