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.
Were we able to predict the future, we would be betting on further proceedings after the decision in CRP/Extell Parcel I, L.P. v Cuomo; 2012 NY Slip Op 50073(U) ; Decided on January 19, 2012
Supreme Court, New York County; Singh, J. Here are the facts as set forth by Justice Singh.
"Petitioner…
Plaintiff is involved in an assault and battery, and then spends the next umpteen years litigating the case, suing his attorney, relitigating the case, suing the police department, suing his attorney once again. It all ends in his being enjoined from suing again without court approval. Only in a pro-se world could this happen.
In…
Attorneys automatically obtain a charging lien by commencing an action. There are several ways to lose that lien. One is to be terminated "for cause" and another is to withdraw voluntarily. This is different from being "consented out" or by withdrawing with mutual consent. In Nassour v Lutheran Med. Ctr. ;2010 NY Slip Op…
The attorney-client privilege, known to almost all, is a wide-ranging, often applied stricture. An attorney is not required to disclose communications with a client concerning the representation…almost ever. There are exceptions, and the one most likely to pop up comes in legal malpractice litigation. Communications between plaintiff and defendant is (almost) never privileged. What of…
Attorneys make mistakes. Sometimes mistakes are fixes, 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 …
Commencement of a new case and the service of process are anachronistic to New York, and provide a wealth of potential problems for the experienced practitioner. Imagine how confusing it is to the pro-se plaintiff. In any event, were one to query a group of experienced attorneys, we predict that a shockingly large number would…
Clients depend on attorneys to advise them on the law. Quick, what do you know about usury? Do you know enough competently to advise a client, or just enough to get yourself into trouble? Here is a legal malpractice story about the later.Theresa Striano Revocable Trust v Blancato
71 AD3d 1122 ; Appellate Division, Second…
Big law firms take on big cases, and even bigger transactions. One might read about a $ 50 Million dollar loan concerning a hospital. One might have seen "Margin Call" and thought about how the sale of those securitized mortgages really takes place, and who checks the paperwork. In Nomura Asset Capital Corp. v. Cadwalader, …
Plaintiff’s mother brought a personal injury case against the City of New York for plaintiff from an injury of December 20, 2002. She retained defendant attorneys to represent her. She discharged the attorneys via a "Consent to Change Attorneys" in August , 2006. She brought the legal malpractice case Fleyshman v Suckle & Schlesinger, PLLC ; …
Last August we reported on the legal malpractice case which arose in California and made its way here. "In this recurring situation, plaintiff has both a California and a NY connection, and hired an attorney to do some work, which eventually goes sour. Frequently a case like this comes up in the entertainment field, with…
