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.
In Eighth Ave. Garage Corp. v Kaye Scholer LLP 2012 NY Slip Op 02402 Appellate Division, First Department Kaye Scholer defended itself, and obtained dismissal. Schwartz & Ponterio were unable to save the case for plaintiff.
The Court held that "Plaintiffs failed to allege facts in support of their claim of legal malpractice that…
Attorneys are subject to a triumvirate of claims, which may generally be: legal malpractice in tort, legal malpractice in contract and breach of fiduciary duty. Attorneys are fiduciaries of their clients, but interestingly, accountants (even CPAs) are not. In Knockout Vending Worldwide, LLC v Grodsky Caporrino & Kaufman CPA’s, P.C. 2012 NY Slip Op…
Attorneys make mistakes. Sometimes mistakes are fixed, sometimes not. Rarely do attorneys go to the length of fabricating complaints, making up stories of ongoing litigation and then running away from the disciplinary committee. We don’t know what defense the attorney might offer, but this tale is both sad and shocking. The attorney in Matter of …
"The defendants Alisa Schiff and Schiff & Skurnik, PLLC (hereinafter together the Schiff defendants), who served as the plaintiff’s attorney with respect to the drafting, and the execution by the plaintiff, of a contract to sell her home (hereinafter the contract of sale), and the defendant Michael Gross, who served as the plaintiff’s attorney for…
Ponzi schemes probably make bad law, in as much as everyone points the finger at everyone, and claims of fraud swirl through and through. So it goes in Kimmel v Schon 2013 NY Slip Op 32318(U) September 26, 2013 Sup Ct, Kings County Docket Number: 015633/2012 Judge: Bernard J. Graham.
A real estate purchase, a…
So many of these cases start over a fee. Here, relatives try to push relatives out of a house (we guess it was bequeathed to both), and clients end up spending about $ 50,000 to avoid being put in the street. Then, it comes time to pay the attorneys. This leads to an attorney fee…
What happens when plaintiff believes that defendant made a serious mistake, and some time has passed, but the underlying case has not yet concluded? The statute of limitations and the requirement for "ascertainable damages" come in conflict. Wait too long and the statute will have passed. Start too early, and one sees a result similar…
Big corporate client goes to Big white shoe law firm and believes that the Big litigator there will take and handle the case. It does not happen. A lesser light handles the case, and the Big Corporate client is unhappy. Now what?
Matter of Matter of G.K. Las Vegas Ltd. Partnership v Boies Schiller & …
Client is sued for trade dress infringement. "Trade Dress" are those non-functional aspects of an otherwise patented item. Even after the patent runs out, "trade dress", or the appearance of a thing, remains protected.
Client had insurance that may have covered the law suit in which it was a defendant. InUtica Cutlery Co. v …
Plaintiff sues law firm, which represented his former employer after he failed to get them to file a corrected opinion letter to facilitate removal of restrictive legends on his stock certificate. The mistake was in the opinion letter where the law firm mistakenly said it represented "Plaintiff" rather than the employer.
The Appellate Division affirms Judge…
