The decision in Harvey v Greenberg ;2011 NY Slip Op 02546 ;Decided on March 31, 2011 ; Appellate Division, First Department is the second appellate decision in a new line of cases which turn the "effectively compelled to settle" standard on its head. Here the question is whether an allouction after settlement of a
Andrew Lavoott Bluestone
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.
Will Medicare Create New Field of Legal Malpractice?
Reporting obligations, payments of money, and settlement of cases. These are all regular and usual areas for attorney attention. In the past, settlement of medical malpractice cases definitely had rules and obligations. Infants had to get their compromises, the infirm had to get their guardians, many a settlement had to pass judicial scrutiny.
The medical…
A Legal Malpractice Cases Nears its Bar Mitzvah
This legal malpractice traces its birth to a 2000 tolling agreement between a long lost law firm, Tenzer Greenblatt and Kramer Levin, which took place in Delaware. In 1996 investors started what would be a bankruptcy bound law suit over an investment firm. The case is Blank Rome, LLP v Parrish ; 2011 NY Slip Op…
A Legal Malpractice Case Back From Civil Court with New Vigor
Procedure is king in legal malpractice and elsewhere. How does a good case end up in Civil Court. Sometimes an inexperienced practitioner, or a pro-se litigant who is trying to save $ 175 might start the case in Civil Court rather than Supreme, and sometimes a judge will transfer the case pursuant to CPLR 325d…
So, Who is At Fault Here? Is it Legal Malpractice?
Jail over Christmas…is there anything worse? Well, yes of course there is, yet being jailed for the holidays is pretty bad. That’s what happened to plaintiff here. Was it her fault or her attorneys?
in Minkow v Sanders ;2011 NY Slip Op 02120 ; Decided on March 24, 2011 ; Appellate Division, First Department we…
Doctor Loses Trial in a Legal Malpractice Case
Doctors and lawyers, legal and medical malpractice. The two fields of law have many similarities, and in this case they are all mixed up. Doctor hires attorney to handle a purchase of a Co-op for use as a medical office. It turns out that there is no certificate of occupancy for use as a medical…
Do the Big Boys Kiss and Tell (II)
We discussed Hinshaw & Culbertson, LLP v e-Smart Tech., Inc.; 2011 NY Slip Op 30651(U);
March 18, 2011; Sup Ct, New York County; Docket Number: 113108/09; Judge: Judith J. Gische on the question of dropping a client just before a deadline. That shortcoming was held not to be legal malpractice. What about unauthorized divulgance of…
Do the Big Firms Kiss and Tell and is it Legal Malpractice?
CLE lecturers almost always warn the listener not to sue for fees. They tell attorneys at the lectures that there will be an inevitable legal malpractice counterclaim. In the case of sole practitioners or small firms, a comparison of their insurance deductible with the fee claim should be made, because they may have to pay the…
One Litigation, Many Legal Malpractice Cases Thereafter
The Elite Models litigation, in which a class action set of models challenged the industry practices on expenses and allocation of fees to the models ended with a group of US District Court cases, a multi-million dollar settlement and a raft of legal malpractice cases which followed. This case, Pillard v Goodman ;2011 NY Slip…
The Successor Attorney Problem in Legal Malpractice
Attorneys move around, and law firms morph. What happens when one attorney is sued for legal malpractice which is said to have taken place at two law firms? One answer is that both firms may be sued in the main action if plaintiff chooses, another choice is the third party action. Here, in Tanger v …