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.
Insurers tell insureds that legal fee cases are the surest way of starting a legal malpractice case. In Blank Rome, LLP v Parrish ;2012 NY Slip Op 00820 ;Decided on February 7, 2012 ;Appellate Division, First Department we see how this develops.
"Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Jeffrey K. Oing, J.), entered on…
Schneider v. Finmann, 15 NY3d 306 (2010) was a sea-change in the law of legal malpractice. For the first time, an estate had standing to litigate over negligence in the representation of the estate and of decedent. Naturally, the usual rules of limitation still apply. Here, in Allmen v Fox Rothschild LLP; 2012…
A guy owns a business (a club?) called Good Time Charlies, and wants to sell it. He hires an attorney who drafts the business sale documents, which include a note for $ 80,000. Unfortunately, no "acceleration" clause is included. The transaction goes sour, and plaintiff sues the buyer. It’s then he learns that he cannot…
Psychologists and Forensic experts are routinely appointed by the Court to examine and produce evidence for the Court; attorneys similarly are used as guardians ad litem, as Court examiners and the like. Are they subject to suit, especially legal malpractice for their activities?
Probably not, and in most cases, no. Ashmore v Lewis, 2012…
The statute of limitations is three years in legal malpractice. It may be extended by the principal of continuous representation. Mere representation is not enough. There has to be a continuing relationship of trust and confidence and the work within the three year period must be on the same issue as is now being sued…
Assume the following: Plaintiff has a medical malpractice case and retains Defendant law firm to handle it. Defendant law firm works on the case for a while, and as the statute of limitations nears, tells the client that it’s not going to go forward, and that the client should seek other counsel. Client, who does…
Here is a short decision with deep reaching consequences. In Kurman v Schnapp ;2010 NY Slip Op 03786 ;Decided on May 4, 2010 ;Appellate Division, First Department we see the deceitful act of an attorney, and the Appellate Division substituting its finding for that of Supreme Court. We have commented on the natural inclination of…
The matter of Steinberg v. Schnapp, 2010 NY SlipOp 02991 relates the story of three lawyers, all of whom labored over a decedent’s estate, and how the triumvirate fell apart. Steinberg and Schnapp were retained to handle the estate by the executor who in this case was the third attorney. Things fell apart rapidly…
Pre-judgment attachment is disfavored in litigation. Generally one must show that "the subject property was in imminent danger of irreparable loss or waste ." Beyond that showing, there are rules when the request for an attachment might be sought. Here is an example.
Breslin Realty Dev. Corp. v Shaw ; 2012 NY Slip Op 00478…
We’ve often noted that stating the mistake made by an attorney is not the difficult part of legal malpractice analysis. Judges, lay persons and attorneys all readily point to this mistake or that mistake. Stating a departure from good and accepted practice is the easy part of the triumvirate. What is way more difficult is analysis of…
