Lutin v Perlberger 2024 NY Slip Op 31879(U) May 29, 2024
Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 158734/2023
Judge: Dakota D. Ramseur is the twenty year story of trying to collect an attorney fee. Debtor’s current attempt to block the attempt by allegations of extortion and violation of Judiciary Law 487 did
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.
Disgorgement, Damages and Legal Malpractice
Spirt v Spirt 2024 NY Slip Op 31873(U) May 22, 2024 Supreme Court, New York County
Docket Number: Index No. 160271/2023 Judge: Gerald Lebovits is not a legal malpractice case. It is an argument between brother and sister over an inheritance. Nevertheless, Judge Lebovits averts to the question of disgorgement and legal malpractice.
“In December…
Federal Preemption of Legal Malpractice Claims
In many ways legal malpractice and medical malpractice are first cousins. In other ways, attorneys get a far more beneficial set of rules in how they are treated by their fellow attorneys in legal malpractice claim settings.
One example is illustrated in Dowlah v Professional Staff Congress 2024 NY Slip Op 02980 Decided on May…
It Takes A Lot To Adequately Plead Judiciary Law 487 Claims
Grasso v Guarino 2024 NY Slip Op 02692 Decided on May 15, 2024
Appellate Division, Second Department illustrates the quanta of allegations necessary to state a cause of action in Judiciary Law 487 claims.
“In 2011, the defendant represented the Town of Babylon in an action (hereinafter the 2011 action) commenced in the District Court…
A Tangled Mess in a Short Sale
Real estate and legal malpractice go hand-in-hand so often in New York that there is practically a sub-genre of Manhattan apartment legal malpractice cases. They involve construction litigation, water intrusion litigation and of course, mortgage law litigation.
RSD857 LLC v Wright 2024 NY Slip Op 31674(U) May 13, 2024 Supreme Court, New York County Docket…
Doctors and Lawyers!
Dabiri v Porter 2024 NY Slip Op 02686 Decided on May 15, 2024 Appellate Division, Second Department is a case that neither defendant took particularly seriously, as each appeared pro-se (probably meaning that they choose not to involve their insurers.)
“In 2006, the plaintiff retained the defendant Albert Van-Lare to represent him with respect to…
Dismissed for The Wrong Reasons, But Still Dismissed
Gopstein v Bellinson Law, LLC 2024 NY Slip Op 02592 Decided on May 09, 2024
Appellate Division, First Department, which we discussed this week for the legal malpractice portion of the case, also had a Judiciary Law 487 component.
“In this legal malpractice action, plaintiff, an attorney acting pro se, alleges that defendants Bellinson Law…
Plaintiff Succeeded On Three Claims and Still Sued for Legal Malpractice
Gopstein v Bellinson Law, LLC 2024 NY Slip Op 02592 Decided on May 09, 2024
Appellate Division, First Department is the curious case of a successful attorney-pro-se plaintiff who settled three claims in a row and then went on to sue the attorney who settled all three claims.
“In this legal malpractice action, plaintiff, an…
Half a Loaf and No Legal Malpractice
Salamone v Deily & Glastetter, LLP 2024 NY Slip Op 31569(U) May 3, 2024
Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 160104/2022
Judge: Shlomo S. Hagler is a complicated legal malpractice case arising from a $2 Million dollar demand note, sale of Apple stock, questions of usury and a few appellate decisions. In…
A Super Complicated Medical Malpractice, Products Liability Legal Malpractice Dismissed For Failures to Explain the Case
What could be more complicated than explaining why an attorney’s errors doomed a generic drug defect products liability case, based upon medical malpractice in the prescribing of the generic allegedly defective drug in which there were nationwide class actions and federal preemption claims?
Schwartz v Oshman & Mirisola, LLP 2024 NY Slip Op 31592(U) …