Guliyev v Banilov & Assoc., P.C. 2023 NY Slip Op 05493 [221 AD3d 589] November 1, 2023 Appellate Division, Second Department concerns a claim that comes up a lot in potential client inquiries. Clients often say that the attorney “settled” the case without their approval, and forced them into a settlement. The general starting point
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.
Even Really Negative Characterizations Don’t make a Judiciary Law 487 Case
As Rondeau v Houston 2024 NY Slip Op 00987 Decided on February 27, 2024 Appellate Division, First Department, reminds us, relief in Judiciary Law 487 is not “lightly given.”
“Order and judgment (one paper), Supreme Court, New York County (Charles E. Ramos, J.), entered on or about September 15, 2015, which, to the extent appealed…
Years of Pro-Se Litigation
Sang Seok Na v Pulvers, Pulvers & Thompson, LLP 2024 NY Slip Op 00978
Decided on February 27, 2024 Appellate Division, First Department is the rare case of legal malpractice that has been heard in both the First and Second Departments. It is similarly rare in the number and length of cases associated with the…
Second Try Fails to Convince Panel
Kaufman v Boies Schiller Flexner 2024 NY Slip Op 00804 Decided on February 15, 2024
Appellate Division, First Department is a case where a second bite at the apple fails.
Initially, “The complaint stated a limited cause of action for breach of contract against BSF. The complaint sufficiently alleged that BSF overbilled or billed for…
One Word Changed It All
Allen v Thompson 2024 NY Slip Op 00929 Decided on February 22, 2024 Appellate Division, First Department, in what may be a pyrrhic victory (Defendant attorney is pro-se), is an unusual set of facts.
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In this case, plaintiff alleges that on or about February 28, 2012, she was terminated from Chanel after nineteen years…
Insurers and Legal Malpractice Claims Against Their Attorneys
Century Prop. & Cas. Ins. Corp. v McManus & Richter 2024 NY Slip Op 00799
Decided on February 15, 2024 Appellate Division, First Department
KAPNICK, J. is a decision with great implications for insurers regarding how defense attorneys might be liable to the carrier for mistakes made during the defense of cases. The question of…
The Claim is Late, For Very Complicated Reasons
457 Warburton Ave, LLC v Monna Lissa, LLC 2024 NY Slip Op 30423(U) February 7, 2024
Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 651358/2020 Judge: Louis L. Nock is quite unusual, and discusses a unique application of the statute of limitations to a legal malpractice (“attorney malpractice”) claim.
“This matter was initially brought…
The Appeal Was A Strategic Decision
Plaintiff loses an appeal to the Second Circuit, and sues the Attorneys in Jackson v Law Offs. of Peter Sverd, PLLC 2024 NY Slip Op 30413(U) February 6, 2024 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 153586/2023 Judge: Lisa S. Headley.
The Court found that there was no support for the legal malpractice…
Judiciary Law 487 Claim Doomed by Lost Sanctions Motion
Courts are institutionally wary of JL 487 cases. This wariness is demonstrated in Radiation Oncology Servs. of Cent. N.Y., P.C. v Warren 2024 NY Slip Op 00484
Decided on February 1, 2024 Appellate Division, Third Department.
“As more fully set forth in two prior decisions of this Court (Radiation Oncology Servs. of Cent. N.Y., …
Husband Sues for Judiciary Law 487 but the Wife has the Better Claim
Sciocchetti v Molinsek 2024 NY Slip Op 00116 Decided on January 11, 2024
Appellate Division, Third Department is a case which highlights a common claim in matrimonial cases, that the attorney spun out the case for personal profit, and maybe, had a relationship going with one of the spouses while the attorney was profiting. Here…