Roedelbronn v Borstein & Sheinbaum LLC 2023 NY Slip Op 05670 Decided on November 09, 2023 Appellate Division, First Department demonstrates the interplay between appeals (and other findings) in the underlying case and success in a subsequent legal malpractice case. Here, the court initially found that the continuing representation doctrine successfully tolled the statute of
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.
A Comedy Of Errors that Cannot Be Fixed ?
In Mrkulic v Peters 2023 NY Slip Op 33930(U) November 2, 2023
Supreme Court, Kings County Docket Number: Index No. 505025/2020
Judge Debra Silber points out a vast number of errors that took place before she was assigned to the case. She rules that none can be fixed by her.
“In Motion Sequence #6, defendants…
The Entity was Represented, But Not the Individuals
A commonly recurring theme in legal malpractice is the application of the privity requirement. That requirement basically (always with some exceptions) prohibits legal malpractice claims against an attorney with whom the Plaintiff does not have privity of contract. One common subset arises when the attorney represents an entity, and where the individual members or shareholders…
Client Says Attorneys Had No Authority To Settle…Client Loses
In Guliyev v Banilov & Assoc., P.C. 2023 NY Slip Op 05493 Decided on November 1, 2023 Appellate Division, Second Department the clients sue in legal malpractice and say that the underlying MVA case was settled without their consent. They lose the legal malpractice on collateral estoppel grounds as well as for failure to show…
No Expert, No Success
Bachman-Richards v Pomeroy 2023 NY Slip Op 05431 Decided on October 26, 2023 Appellate Division, Third Department is the kind of case that defendants like to point out when they argue that clients cannot be trusted. The Court found that plaintiff consulted with an attorney in reaching a separation agreement from her husband. Later she…
An Extraordinary Turnaround in a Legal Malpractice Claim
Prospect Capital Corp. v Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP 2023 NY Slip Op 33797(U)
October 25, 2023 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 653941/2022 Judge: Margaret A. Chan is a very unusual example of a court hearing a reargument motion and changing its mind. The judge notes in minute detail the court’s…
Wrong Answers and Lack of Actual Proof Dooms a Fiduciary Duty Claim
In what appears ended up as a pro-se breach of fiduciary duty law suit, in Pacelli v Peter L. Cedeno & Assoc., PC 2023 NY Slip Op 05448 Decided on October 26, 2023
Appellate Division, First Department Plaintiff loses the claim for failure to connect pecuniary loss with the allegations of a breach.…
The Dead Man’s Statute and Legal Malpractice
Gordon v Martel 2023 NY Slip Op 33666(U) October 17, 2023 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 150241-2023 Judge: Lynn R. Kotler demonstrates that real estate in New York City is a driving force for attorney employment, litigation cases and, eventually, legal malpractice. In this particular case, the attorney died and extraneous…
Marital Legal Malpractice and the Allocution
Mensch v Calogero 2023 NY Slip Op 33648(U) October 17, 2023
Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 155795/2022
Judge: Dakota D. Ramseur demonstrates the extreme danger matrimonial litigants are subjected to in a settlement allocution when they are asked the simple question by the judge: “Are you satisfied with the work of…
No Collateral Estoppel in this Legal Malpractice Case
Rothman v Sandra Radna, P.C. 2023 NY Slip Op 33670(U) October 17, 2023
Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 152678/2023
Judge: Lynn R. Kotler is a to-the-point analysis of a legal malpractice claim and a CPLR 3211 motion to dismiss.
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After, the amended complaint was filed in this action on May…