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.
A close reading of Halperin v Van Dam 2026 NY Slip Op 02333 April 16, 2026 Appellate Division, First Department implies that (counterintuitiviely) it is not worth that much.
“This case arises from plaintiffs’ purchase of an apartment located on the eighth floor of 32 West 20th Street, New York, New York (the Building). The…
Shaikh v Davis 2026 NY Slip Op 31320(U) April 1, 2026 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 100809/2025 Judge: Hasa A. Kingo presents the question of what happens if a CPLR 3211 motion is made after an answer.
“Plaintiff Zia H. Shaikh (pro se) commenced this legal malpractice action on August 1,…
Aberbach-Marolda v Cherner 2026 NY Slip Op 02089 April 8, 2026 Appellate Division, Second Department is a real curiosity. A star appellate team for Defendant-Appellant, appealing from a negative outcome at a very rare legal malpractice trial and what seems to be an uninsured attorney Plainitff. Much seems to turn on evidentiary missteps prior to…
Link Motion Inc. v DLA Piper LLP (us) 2026 NY Slip Op 02066 April 7, 2026
Appellate Division, First Department is a short distillation of how a legal malpractice clame can go wrong. Here, it ended in dismissal, attorney-fee sanction and the award of $ 482,390 to DLA Piper.
“Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County…
North Flats LLC v Belkin Burden Goldman, LLP 2026 NY Slip Op 01165 Decided on March 03, 2026 Appellate Division, First Department is an example of where the defenses of insufficient expert causation evidence coupled with “intervening cause” entitle defendant to summary judgment.
“The court properly dismissed plaintiff’s claim for legal malpractice because defendant established…
It’s a puzzling set of facts, and as enunciated by the Court, it seems that the two sons running a liquor store signed papers selling the store and the building when they had no authority to do so. Was the buyer’s attorney potentially liable to the owner?
Dixie v Scheer 2025 NY Slip Op 30167(U) January 11, 2025 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 654690/2022 Judge: Andrea Masley is a chronocal of how an investment can be completely undermined by mergers and sales of assets so that the investment is completely lost. Were the attorneys a cause, is a…
Seibel v Scarola Zubatov Schaffin PLLC 2025 NY Slip Op 00067 [234 AD3d 457]
January 7, 2025 Appellate Division, First Department answers a murky question: How can a law firm set up an exit strategy in its retainer agreement and keep the fees already paid?
Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Jennifer G. Schecter, J.)…
Accounting malpractice is different from legal malpractice in several important ways. The first is the nature of yearly tax filings, which sets the structure for the application of the statute of limitations to a mistake in a single tax year and often rules out any question of the tolling of that statute because of continuing…
Accounting malpractice is different from legal malpractice in several important ways. The first is the nature of yearly tax filings, which sets the structure for the application of the statute of limitations to a mistake in a single tax year and often rules out any question of the tolling of that statute because of continuing…
