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.
One aspect of legal malpractice litigation is the failure to follow developments in the law. Rules change and not keeping up with the changes leads to mistakes, criticism and, later, litigation. The rules for non-party discovery have undergone some changes over the years, and today’s decision is worth reading.
In Kooper v Kooper ; 2010…
A criminal defendant is convicted and takes an appeal. He loses. Criminal defendant makes a CPL 440 motion. He loses. Now he finds out that no one seems to have his grand jury indictment. Is that grounds for a successful appeal? We don’t know, but in Lee v Pierre
2011 NY Slip Op 32911(U); November…
We often wonder whether legal malpractice cases are treated with a type of royal exasperation by judges. Often the feeling in the air is that legal malpractice cases maybe should not be brought, or that its somewhat shameful to bring one, or that perhaps attorneys are due a little extra consideration. We wonder if that’s…
Plaintiff and a buddy go to attorney to start a business. Attorney is retained, and eventually Plaintiff is the odd-person out. Attorney’s retainer agreement names only the buddy, and even though attorney sends letters to both Plaintiff and buddy, and creates documents which plaintiff and buddy sign, it is Buddy who comes out with 75%…
In Hirsch v Fink ; 2011 NY Slip Op 07699 ; Decided on November 1, 2011 ; Appellate Division, First Department we see an unusual situation. Attorney-client sues his own attorney after an attorney-based litigation for legal malpractice. In this particular case plaintiff-attorney loses on res judicata and subsequent attorney grounds.
Subsequent attorney grounds…
Sometimes its obvious what responsibilities the attorney will take on in a new representation. If it’s a motor vehicle accident, then the attorney is hired to prosecute the personal injury action, up to and including trial. Here, in Hallman v Kantor ;2010 NY Slip Op 03280 ;Decided on April 20, 2010 ;Appellate Division, Second Department…
Legal malpractice cases arise when there has been some departure from good and accepted practice, and a negative result follows. What happens if a party waits too long to file for some relief? Generally speaking, they will be precluded, and some attorney will tell the client that there has been a departure. In Simon v …
What must plaintiff prove in order to be successful in a legal malpractice case? SOFIA FRANKEL, Plaintiff, – against – BRIAN F. McDONOUGH and DRINKER BIDDLE & REATH LLP, Defendants.10 Civ. 6106 (DAB)UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK; 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 123992;October 24, 2011 shows us that plaintiff must…
The law of legal malpractice is different; it is ubiquitous. We see this theme again and again in the published cases. In products liability law, privity was jettisoned years ago. It remains in legal malpractice law. In In re: HIRSCH ELECTRIC CO., INC., Debtor. ALLAN B. MENDELSOHN, as Chapter 7 Trustee of the…
Plaintiff buys a house which it says was illegally constructed, and further says that since the seller worked for Oyster Bay, the town overlooked illegal construction and gave a Certificate of Occupancy. This action, JULIE LAMOTHE and JUSTIN LAMOTHE, Plaintiffs, -against- THE TOWN OF OYSTER BAY, THE TOWN OF OYSTER BAY DEPARTMENT OF PLANNING …
