Two lessons for legal malpractice practitioners and, upon consideration, for all attorneys can be found in Wild v Catholic Health Says. 2013 NY Slip Op 04043 Decided on June 6, 2013 Court of Appeals. The first lesson is straightforward. One must preserve objections in order to appeal from the resulting order. Here, "On appeal, defendants contend that
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.
A Son in Jail, New York Parents and a Legal Malpractice Case
On occasion, the bitterness and melancholy aspects of a case are cognizable merely from reading a motion decision. In Bloomgarden v Lanza 2013 NY Slip Op 31221(U) June 5, 2013
Supr Ct, Suffolk County Docket Number: 8587-12 Judge: Daniel Martin two parents, both doctors, sue California attorneys over representation of their son, convicted of…
Legal Malpractice and the Insurance Carrier’s Obligations
This clearly written Court of Appeals case lays out the Insurance carrier’s obligation to defend legal malpractice cases, and what happens when they refuse to defend. K2 Inv. Group, LLC v American Guar. & Liab. Ins. Co. ,2013 NY Slip Op 04270 , Decided on June 11, 2013 Court of Appeals, Smith, J.
Legal Malpractice and the Adult Use Industry
The Adult Use industry was the subject of constitutional litigation in the City of New York, and was essentially limited to certain non-residential corridors. In DeWitt, New Yorkits use is also limited. What happens when an operator hires a law firm to help set up an adult use industry, and finds that the…
A Judiciary Law 487 Claim Clears its First Hurdle
From what we can decipher in this decision, an insured car owner was convinced that it had to pay $200,000 from its personal assets in settlement of a case, and that the insurance company was allowed not to pay. Plaintiff alleges that this happened because of deceit.
In Duszynski v Allstate Ins. Co. 2013…
What is Effectively Compelled and What is Speculation?
Client retains attorney, and reaches settlement of an underlying workers’ compensation case. He later sues attorney for legal malpractice. May he?
The short answer is yes, a client may sue his attorney after a settlement, if "’if it is alleged that [the] settlement . . . was effectively compelled by the mistakes of counsel’" (Tortura…
What’s A Trial Strategy and What’s Not ?
Judgment calls are exempt from legal malpractice consideration. Put another way, an attorney may not be held for legal malpractice on the basis of a reasonable trial strategy even when unsuccessful. But, what is a trial strategy and what is a departure from good standards? Often the difference is in the eye of the beholder…
What Did Plaintiff Really Get?
Plaintiff starts a legal malpractice law suit, and then settles it for $ 40,000. Later, he turns around and seeks to set aside a stipulation of discontinuance, general release, and hold-harmless agreement in the case. In Rosin v Weinberg 2013 NY Slip Op 03981 Decided on June 5, 2013
Appellate Division, Second Department plaintiff is…
After Legal Malpractice Case Fails, So Does a Medical Malpractice Case
Sadly for plaintiff, her case is now fully dismissed. It was earlier dismissed against her attorney.
She alleges in Strujan v Head 2013 NY Slip Op 31154(U) May 24, 2013 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 800029/2012 Judge: Eileen A. Rakower that her case arose from : "an incident in September 1997…
Pari Delicto, Comparative Negligence and Legal Malpractice
The First Department delved into a legal malpractice case with several unusual affirmative defenses. In Whitney Group, LLC v Hunt-Scanlon Corp. 2013 NY Slip Op 03929 Decided on May 30, 2013 Appellate Division, First Department we see affirmative defenses of "in pari delicto", comparative fault and a question of whether there must be joint…