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.
It is rare for a CPLR 3211 motion to dismiss a legal malpractice case is denied in Supreme Court and reversed on appeal. That’s what happened in Frydco Capital Group, LLC v Carlton Fields, P.A. 2022 NY Slip Op 02619 Decided on April 21, 2022 Appellate Division, First Department.
“The legal malpractice claims should have…
Drasche v Edelman & Edelman 2022 NY Slip Op 00044 [201 AD3d 434]
January 6, 2022 Appellate Division, First Department is the story of an offer (or was there really one) which was not accepted, and if it was made, not communicated. Beyond that information, the rest is hazy,
“Plaintiff retained defendant Edelman & Edelman,…
Joseph v Fensterman 2022 NY Slip Op 02398 Decided on April 13, 2022 Appellate Division, Second Department is a reversal, in part, of what we believe are all too common legal malpractice CPLR 3211 dismissals.
“In November 2014, the plaintiffs commenced this action, inter alia, to recover damages for violations of Judiciary Law § 487…
Nexus Captial Invs, LLC v. Fleischmann, 2022 NY Slip Op 30808(U) March 10, 2022 Supreme Court, Kings County Docket Number: Index No. 512222/2021 Judge: Leon Ruchelsman is an example of what to do when the statute of limitation is approaching yet the underlying case has not concluded. Here, “According to the complaint, on October…
Alphas v Smith 2022 NY Slip Op 30722(U) March 7, 2022 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 155790/2015 Judge: Lewis J. Lubell presents the situation in which both plaintiff and defendant file motions for summary judgment, each supported by experts. In the duel of the experts, the dual motions are both denied.…
Sanctions? Always a fear. Costs, the same. In Kantrowitz, Goldhamer & Graifman, P.C. v Ayrovainen 2022 NY Slip Op 02256 Decided on April 6, 2022, Appellate Division, Second Department reversed a sanction.
“ORDERED that the decision and order is reversed insofar as appealed from, on the facts and in the exercise of discretion, with costs,…
When the attorney-client relationship ends, and continuous representation also ends are the subject of a significant number of decisions. The requirements for continuous representation, that there is actual work performed, that there is a continuing relationship of trust and confidence and that there is a shared understanding of the need for further work are all…
A recurring issue in legal malpractice is how to deal with the attorney who quits midstream. In medical malpractice cases that often comes just before the 2 1/2 year deadline. The attorney will take the case, work it up, and about 2 years into the representation tell the client that he/she is withdrawing. This leaves…
Ward v Klein 2022 NY Slip Op 02154 Decided on March 30, 2022 Appellate Division, Second Department gives an explanation of how and when a CPLR 205 recommencement of an action is viable and when it is not.
“The plaintiff hired the defendants to represent her in connection with certain disciplinary charges brought against her…
In Platt v Berkowitz 2022 NY Slip Op 01405 Decided on March 03, 2022 the Appellate Division, First Department wiped out two separate Judiciary Law § 487 claims, on on collateral estoppel and the other for lack of standing.
“The doctrine of collateral estoppel precludes plaintiff’s Judiciary Law § 487 claim against defendant Morrell Berkowitz,…
