“But for” proximate cause is central to legal malpractice claims. In Bono v Stim & Warmuth, P.C. 2023 NY Slip Op 02099 Decided on April 26, 2023 Appellate Division, Second Department the claim was that “but for” the failure to plead “usury” as an affirmative defense, the underlying litigation would have been won. The Appellate
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.
Where Was the “But For” Causation?
Legal malpractice is different from almost all other forms of litigation, requiring not only the pleading of “but for” causation, but also a very robust explanation of how things “should’ have gone, but for the negligence of the attorneys. In Buchanan v Law Offs. of Sheldon E. Green, P.C. 2023 NY Slip Op 01980 Decided…
Inexplicable Damages and Successor Counsel Issues Doom A Legal Malpractice Case
Creadore v Rosenberg & Estis, P.C. 2023 NY Slip Op 31253(U) April 19, 2023
Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 155690/2022
Judge: Lyle E. Frank is an illustration of what happens when attorneys are terminated and then the underlying case settles while attorney # 2 is representing Plaintiff (or Plaintiff is pro-se).…
The Relationship Deteriorated and The Statute Began To Run
Fraumeni v Law Firm of Jonathan D’Agostino, P.C. 2023 NY Slip Op 01984
Decided on April 19, 2023 Appellate Division, Second Department illustrates the outer limits of “continuous representation” which requires a continuing relationship of trust and confidence as well as a mutual understanding of the need for further legal work. Here, the act of…
No Opposition and a Lost Case
Kleinberg v Pellegrini & Assoc., LLC 2023 NY Slip Op 31196(U) April 3, 2023
Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 154718/2014
Judge: Shlomo S. Hagler is an example of how an unopposed motion for summary judgment will almost always be the end of the case. Here, the legal malpractice claim was that…
Do Attorneys Get the Benefit of the Doubt?
Williams v Silverstone 2023 NY Slip Op 01917 Decided on April 12, 2023
Appellate Division, Second Department is a common or varietal version of motion to dismiss decisions in legal malpractice settings. Plaintiff alleges that she had to settle a case with her former employer, which could have come out better, had the attorneys not…
Jump Into The Trial At The Last Minute And Then Not Paid
O’Keefe v Barra 2023 NY Slip Op 01829 Decided on April 6, 2023 Appellate Division, Third Department is the kind of case that defendant attorneys (and their insurers) point to as “bad” legal malpractice cases…those that are made in counterclaims to fee lawsuits by the attorney against the client. In this case, attorney wins the…
Legal Malpractice Claim Survives, All Others Dismissed
Philip S. Schwartzman, Inc. v Pliskin, Rubano, Baum & Vitulli 2023 NY Slip Op 01812
Decided on April 5, 2023 Appellate Division, Second Department is a legal malpractice case concerning, as do so many other famous legal malpractice cases, real estate in New York. Real estate is a driver of great financial gain in NY…
No Standing Even Though an Executrix
Phillips v Murtha 2023 NY Slip Op 01767 Decided on April 04, 2023 Appellate Division, First Department demonstrates that several recurring attorney representation scenarios in wills and estates legal malpractice claims will fail for lack of standing. The consistently failing storyline is that an elderly person is brought to an attorney who drafts a will…
Attorney’s Mistake In Defending Himself Excused
It is always ironic when mistakes happen in a legal malpractice case, which itself is about mistakes made in litigation. Mrkulic v Peters 2023 NY Slip Op 31012(U)
March 30, 2023 Supreme Court, Kings County Docket Number: Index No. 505025/2020
Judge: Debra Silber is no exception.
“This is a legal malpractice action which arises from…