Nerayoff v Covington & Burling LLP 2025 NY Slip Op 34563(U) November 25, 2025 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 158208/2024 Judge: Mary V. Rosado, is that avis rara criminal defense legal malpractice case that permits the claim upon a showing of actual innocence. While that structural defense was not deployed or
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.
22 NYCRR 202.27 and Legal Malpractice
While many court conferences are held virtually (and practitioners almost universally relish this change), there are still many in-person, in-court conferences. The single failure of plaintiff’s attorney to attend a conference can be the basis for dismissal of plaintiff’s case, which is certainly a drastic outcome. In Marathon Strategies, LLC v Centennial Props. Inc. 2025…
A Judiciary Law 487 Claim Lost At Trial
Not that many Judiciary Law 487 cases go to trial, and fewer are successful. Josephs v AACT Fast Collections Servs. Inc. 2025 NY Slip Op 34427(U) November 18, 2025 Supreme Court, Kings County Docket Number: Index No. 502491-2012 Judge: Peter P. Sweeney was lost at a bench trial.
“The undersigned presided over a bench trial…
A Tangled Web of Attorney Malpractice Claims
A case is started and a default in answering takes place. How the balance of the litigation and the dismissal of the claim took place is now the subject of a legal malpractice claim involving multiple law firms in Mei Lan Zhang v Wu & Kao, PLLC 2025 NY Slip Op 34523(U) November 25, 2025…
When Is Severance of Legal Malpractice Claims Warranted?
Stfleur v Wallace 2025 NY Slip Op 34502(U) November 24, 2025 Supreme Court, Kings County Docket Number: Index No. 525973/2019 Judge: Ingrid Joseph delves into whether a defendant attorney can get her case severed from the plaintiff’s claims against others.
“In this matter, Denaka L. Perry, Esq. (“Perry”) moves (Motion Seq. 5) for an Order…
Usury Or Not and How the Attorney Might Be Responsible
“But for” causation is highlighted in the technical description of a commercial loan and its consequences in Salamone v Deily & Glastetter, LLP 2025 NY Slip Op 04846 [241 AD3d 1078] September 4, 2025 Appellate Division, First Department. Whether the loan was usurious and how the attorneys interacted with the loss of repayment are discussed.…
Was This Attorney’s Claim for Fees “Audacious; ballsy; disingenuous; nervy; brazen; shameless; or greedy”?
In a very (very) unusual kind of opinion, Justice Weinmann of Supreme Court, Erie County holds in Hogan v Van Buren, 2025 NY Slip Op 25259 Decided on October 3, 2025 that a suspended attorney may not seek fees from the clients involved in the litigation which caused his suspension.
“Corey Hogan is a…
Some Claims Still Good, Some Too Late
As yet another real estate legal malpractice case, the decision in 538 Morgan Realty LLC v Law Off. of Aihong You, PC 2025 NY Slip Op 06639 Decided on December 02, 2025
Appellate Division, First Department distinguishes between two different (and subsequent) firms.
“Plaintiffs alleged facts permitting a reasonable inference that the liquidated damages clause…
Pre-Action Discovery in a Legal Malpractice Case Prohibited
Coyle v Catterson 2025 NY Slip Op 34372(U) November 17, 2025 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 157161/2025 Judge: James d’Auguste is a kind of celebrity legal malpractice case, in as much as the defendant is a former Court of Appeals Judge who transitioned to a big law position. The underlying case…
“Effectively Compelled To Settle” and The Allocution in Matrimonial Cases
Matrimonial cases are unlike almost every other kind of case except a criminal plea. Get involved in a car accident and you will likely settle through your attorney with a release and a stipulation of discontinuance. Resolution of a breach of contract will follow the same paradigm, as will a battle over patents. However, settle…