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 this legal malpractice case, many of the causes of action are now weeded out after CPLR 3211 motions. H.P.S. Mgt. Co., Inc. v St. Paul Surplus Lines Ins. Co. 2012 NY Slip Op 09028
Decided on December 26, 2012 Appellate Division, Second Department
"In an action, inter alia, to recover damages for…
A very familiar scenario in the legal malpractice world is the Attorney Fee Suit / Legal Malpractice Counterclaim. Facially, this combo is completely predictable and logically there is no shame or second-class status to the legal malpractice counterclaim. In practice, however, many courts think the counterclaim is a "last-ditch" or equivalent effort to avoid paying justified fees. …
In Rooney v Manzo 2012 NY Slip Op 32966(U) December 5, 2012 Sup Ct, Queens County
Docket Number: 5865/2012 Judge: Robert J. McDonald we see an inspired attempt to get around the 3 year statue of limitations. It does not succeed.
"In his first cause of action, plaintiff sets forth his claim that defendant breached…
In this legal malpractice case, defendant made motions in a seemingly out-of-order fashion, yet succeeded even though. Here is the AD discussing a novel method of moving to dismiss in Shirzadnia v Lecci 2012 NY Slip Op 09043 Decided on December 26, 2012 Appellate Division, Second Department:
"The plaintiff commenced the instant action by…
We would like to take this opportunity today to wish all a Happy New Year, with health and blessings. This past year has been tumultious and the odds are that 2013 will be exciting as well. We’re looking forward to reporting on the Legal Malpractice news and cases as time and energy swirl around us.
Global Bus. Inst. v Rivkin Radler LLP 2012 NY Slip Op 09180 Decided on December 27, 2012
Appellate Division, First Department is the exception to the rule, where Supreme Court declines to dismiss and the AD reverses. The AD’s reasoning is fairly clear. They hold that Plaintiff cannot prove that the poor commercial outcome is…
In Green v Gross & Levin, LLP 2012 NY Slip Op 09027 Decided on December 26, 2012
Appellate Division, Second Department which is a Pro-se legal malpractice complaint, all that can be discerned from the Appellate Division is that there were a lot of causes of action and that some of them survived.
The AD…
Plaintiff seemingly made some bad procedural choices during the litigation, and even though defendants failed to appeal from all the issues, they ultimately win.
In Wright v Shapiro 2012 NY Slip Op 08964 Released on December 21, 2012 Appellate Division, Fourth Department the Court writes:
"James J. Shapiro and James J. Shapiro, P.A. (defendants)…
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 Decided on December 20, 2012 Appellate Division, Third Department…
Both the underlying case and the legal malpractice case were resolved by summary judgment, except that the Appellate Division reversed dismissal of the legal malpractice case, and determined that the motion was so deficient that they did not need to read plaintiff’s brief.
In Lever v Roesch 2012 NY Slip Op 08699 Decided on…
