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.
The claims in this case (and the related cases) cannot be harmonized with the defenses. This series of huge real estate transactions either reveals corruption and theft, or plaintiff is totally wrong. There does not seem to be any middle ground.
Silver v Newman 2012 NY Slip Op 32572(U) October 2, 2012 Supreme Court, Suffolk…
Try to sort through Tolmosova v Umarova 2012 NY Slip Op 51921(U) Decided on October 1, 2012 Supreme Court, Kings County Schmidt, J. and you will see two things. There is a reason such a large percentage of new businesses fail. The second is that the hearing on this case must have been amazing.…
We don’t often see a US District Court Judge get so worked up. Here, in PAUL BLACK, Plaintiff, -against- JEFFREY S. SCHWARTZ and LAW OFFICE OF JEFFREY S. SCHWARTZ, Defendants.09-CV-2271(JS)(GRB) UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 132524 we see a garden or varietal legal malpractice…
The statute of limitations exists in part because of the human need to get things behind us. For commerce and (in general) life to keep on the law imposes a bright-line, specific period of time, after which it’s just too late. To be fair, even when some are disenfranchised, its a good idea.
In legal…
It’s often said to us that a predecessor attorney was corrupt, or "took" the money, or was "bought." We’ve yet to see direct evidence of attorney corruption, but the case of AMY R. GURVEY, Plaintiff-Appellant, -v.- COWAN, LIEBOWITZ & LATMAN, P.C., CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS, INC., LIVE NATION, INC., INSTANT LIVE CONCERTS, LLC, NEXTICKETING, INC., WILLIAM …
In an unusual turn of events, defendant moved to amend his answer and for summary judgment. His motion was denied, and he took an appeal. In an unusual timing situation, trial and verdict in the case , Borges v Placeres 2012 NY Slip Op 51883(U) Decided on October 3, 2012 Appellate Term, First Department favor…
"An attorney who defends himself has a fool for a client" appears to date from 1809 in the Philadelphia the Port Folio. Nothing has changed over the past 200 years. In Guerrera v Zysk
2012 NY Slip Op 06578 Decided on October 3, 2012 Appellate Division, Second Department we see an example. Defendant attorney appears pro-se. …
How many fathers go to jail for non-payment of child support? We have no firm number, but guess it is less than 10 a year in New York State. Here is the story of one who was. Joel Amaker was in arrears on his child support, and hired defendant Howard D. Lee to represent him. …
Experts (we might as well call then wizards) are an essential part of litigation, and in legal malpractice litigation they are everywhere. What are the rules, what are the uses, and when are they essential? In answer to these questions, we’re excited to share an Outside Counsel column from today’s New York Law Journal, entitled…
Cases in Landlord-Tenant court often have sad back-stories, and even sadder endings. InAlves v 152-154 W. 131st St. Holding Co., Inc. ;2011 NY Slip Op 32328(U) ;August 25, 2011
Supreme Court, New York ounty ;Docket Number: 116783/10 ;Judge: Donna M. Mills we see only the begining of a tale so complex, that it does…
