Would the words "mutual understanding" have made the difference in this case? Continuous representation by an attorney of a client requires actual work, a mutual understanding that further work has to be performed and a relationship of trust and confidence. In Landow v Snow Becker Krauss P.C. 2012 NY Slip Op 31971(U) Supreme Court
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.
Sure, We Sued the Wrong Person, But…
Legal malpractice is different from all other areas of litigation, as it has a fourth and unique requirement that "but for" the mistake of the attorney, there would have been a different and better result for plaintiff. In Portilla v Law Offs. of Arcia & Flanagan 2013 NY Slip Op 08606 Decided on December 26…
Legal Malpractice and the Conflict of Laws
Reading the beginning of this case immediately brought us back to a Conflicts class at law school, and that’s a very long time ago. We were to to analyze an auto accident in which plaintiff resided in state A and the accident took place in state B and the insurer was from state C…well you…
It’s Not Always “Happily Ever After”
Husband suffers personal injury in a fall from a scaffold. He resolves the case for $1M. Even at that number, he and wife then succeed in a legal malpractice case for an additional $ 297,000. What happens then? Burnett v Burnett, 2012 NY Slip Op 08850 Appellate Division, Third Department tells the sad but…
Too Eager to Dismiss a Legal Malpractice Claim?
We’ve asked in the past whether there is an institutional bias against legal malpractice cases. Self-regulation of industries ( the LIBOR, for example) often lacks any rigor. The legal world also, in a way, self regulates. It is after all, rules for attorneys, written by attorneys, administered and judged by attorneys. In Wiener v Epstein…
Defendants Fail to Require Joinder or Obtain Dismissal
Defendants in this legal malpractice case argued that there was a missing party, and that the lack of privity between plaintiff and the defendant attorney was fatal. They lost in Supreme Court, and on appeal, continued to lose.
Mr. San, LLC v Zucker & Kwestel, LLP 2013 NY Slip Op 08416 Decided on December…
Spoliation of Evidence and Legal Malpractice
This is a convoluted case, which started as a products liability-fall from a ladder- case, morphed into a legal malpractice case, went to trial and was prematurely dismissed during plaintiff’s case, was reversed on appeal and now comes back on a preclusion motion. The problem in Burbige v Siben & Ferber 2012 NY Slip Op…
Is This a Paradigm of Legal Representation?
The question of how a competent and qualified attorney would handle a case is the crux of Bua v Purcell & Ingrao, P.C. 2012 NY Slip Op 06908 Appellate Division, Second Department . At issue is whether attorney committed malpractice in the termination of a real estate contract of sale.
"The plaintiff commenced this…
How to Use an Expert in Legal Malpractice Litigation
There is nothing new in the case of Jack Hall Plumbing & Heating, Inc. v Duffy 2012 NY Slip Op 07249 Appellate Division, Third Department , merely a restatement of the long-standing and settled rule that expert opinion is required to show that there was / was not a departure from good and accepted practice.
Early Summary Judgment Motion Fails in a Legal Malpractice Case
We have mused on the eagerness with which Courts sometimes exhibit in granting early dismissal of legal malpractice cases, sometimes prematurely grappling with the "but for" portion of the case well before a good record is developed. In Carter Ledyard & Millburn LLP v Pearl Seas Cruises, LLC 2013 NY Slip Op…