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.
What are the rules for use of experts, including when they must be revealed, how they must be noticed, and how a CPLR 3101 notice interacts with jury selection dates? The answer is that no one knows.
Frankel v Vernon & Ginsburg, LLP 2014 NY Slip Op 04136 Decided on June 10, 2014 Appellate…
A condominium deal gone sour is the genesis of this Judiciary Law 487 case. This case initially traveled outside the boundaries of typical cases, and was initially heard by a beth din arbitration panel. Later, it returned to state court and was decided by more conventional means.
Laufer v Skillman Estates, LLC 2014 NY…
Anecdotal evidence suggests that the largest category of attorney-client litigation concerns attorney fees. Cohen v Hack 2014 NY Slip Op 04068 Decided on June 5, 2014 Appellate Division, First Department is a prime example. The claim is that the law firm pressured client into changing from a contingent to an hourly fee. Is this legal…
It definitely seems so to us. The original decision is a short-form order, which is not available to state the Court’s reasoning, but the Appellate Division cites Plaintiff’s arrest at the nursing home where he worked which shows he suffered pecuniary loss.
Fountain v Ferrara 2014 NY Slip Op 03947 Decided on June 3…
Contrary to the general view of how cases are decided in legal malpractice, the focus is almost always on the underlying case, or the "but for" question. Pannone v Silberstein 2014 NY Slip Op 03944 Decided on June 3, 2014 Appellate Division, First Department is no exception. Was the Article 78 actually filed on…
One of the more interesting legal malpractice cases in the patent area has been the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory v. Ropes & Gray case. Cold Spring announced the settlement today which ended a cross-state litigation. It started in the Eastern District, and was transferred to Massachussets, then dismissed in US District Court, District of Massachusetts there…
Norwich, NY: It is ironic when a legal malpractice complaint is dismissed for technical reasons, and worse when it makes claims that are never compensible. Nevertheless, in Kreamer v Town of Oxford 2012 NY Slip Op 04445 [96 AD3d 1128] June 7, 2012 Appellate Division, Third Department that’s exactly what happened.
"Defendant Roger Monaco (hereinafter…
Attorney represents real estate corporation, and represents it, makes loans to it, and in intimately involved for a number of years. Attorney dies. Litigation ensues.
Cohen v Gateway Bldrs. Realty, Inc. 2014 NY Slip Op 50832(U) Decided on May 27, 2014
Supreme Court, Kings County Demarest, J. is at base, a very sad story. …
UTICA: The battle in legal malpractice cases almost always centers on the question of "but for", that hypothetical comparison of the actual outcome to the ideal outcome, had there been no malpractice. Dischiavi v Calli 2013 NY Slip Op 07289 [111 AD3d 1258] November 8, 2013
Appellate Division, Fourth Department is a prime example. …
A criticism that arises regularly, and which seems embedded in the judiciary’s imagination is that the majority of legal malpractice cases are "sour grapes", "Monday morning quarterbacking" and "reflexive counterclaims." While we hotly dispute these terms, some cases do prove the generalization true. Liddle & Robinson, LLP v Byrne 2014 NY Slip Op 31328(U) …
