Statute of limitation issues are especial difficult in transactional legal malpractice calculations. In litigation legal malpractice, the last date of representation is generally not too hard to agree upon. Here, in Elizabeth Arden, Inc. v Abelman, Frayne & Schwab , 2010 NY Slip Op 51836(U) Decided on October 22, 2010; Supreme Court, New York County
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.
CPLR 321(c), The Court of Appeals and Legal Malpractice
We’ve noted in the past that legal malpractice cases sometimes have a history of legal malpractice within them. As an example, Moray v Koven & Krause, Esqs. 2010 NY Slip Op 07573 ;Decided on October 26, 2010 ;Court of Appeals ;Read, J. serves well. it involves a legal malpractice case levied against a…
Fee Disputes and Legal Malpractice
"The best defense is a strong offense"…"Tyranny shall not go unopposed!" which of these two opposing story lines will succeed in a legal fee / legal malpractice case. Here is one example where the fee side wins out. Duane Morris LLP v Astor Holdings Inc. , 2009 NY Slip Op 02544
Decided on April…
Is This a Legal Malpractice Industry?
In a US District Court case, entitled Bloom v. Morley, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 104704 (EDNY, 2010) one attorney is suing a second attorney over fees and defamatnio. What was the underlying story?
"Plaintiff further contends that a "business relationship [existed] between Defendant and Lugli for purposes of multi-forum litigation * * *," whereby defendant and Lugli…
Legal Malpractice and “In pari delicto”
The Court of Appeals yesterday decided a case which limits potential liability, or more correctly put, continues a limit of potential liability of a corporation’s outside professional advisors, including attorneys. In Kirschner v Kpmg Llp ; 2010 NY Slip Op 07415 ; Decided on October 21, 2010
Court of Appeals ; Read, J. we see…
Relation Back Doctrine and Legal Malpractice
Attorneys frequently use LLPs or PCs as their corporate identity. Does this really make a difference in small or single attorney settings? The short answer is: "yes!" in Teodorescu v Resnick & Binder, P.C. ;2010 NY Slip Op 20400 ;Decided on September 28, 2010 ;Supreme Court, Kings County ;Kurtz, J. we see what…
Attorney Fees in Medical Malpractice, Loans to a Client and Disbarment
The litigation funding industry either preys on, or aids clients who have significant damage cases that they cannot bring to trial, or when the clients need money during long litigation. This story, while nominally that of a disbarred attorney, focuses a light on the lending practices of attorneys and clients.
There is a top tier…
A Motion for Summary Judgment in Legal Malpractice that Just Can’t be Decided
PROTOSTORM, LLC , -against- ANTONELLI, TERRY, STOUT & KRAUS, LLP, ., Defendants. 08-CV-931 (NGG) (JO) UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 109466 [October 12, 2010, Decided] is the Court’s lament over a motion for summary judgment gone bad. Federal Courts have a Rule 56.1 which is supposed…
Legal Malpractice and Reading the Document
in Gelobter v Fox 10/01/2010 , Supreme Court, Nassau County, Judge Marber, we see a legal malpractice action sounding in "Seller Rescue Fraud." Plaintiff says that she did not know the price at which she sold her house, and that the actually selling price was several hundred thousand dollars less than she believed.
Her complaint…
Intermittent and Continuous Representation in Legal Malpractice
In Byron Chem. Co., Inc. v. Groman; 2009 NY Slip Op 03465 ; Decided on April 28, 2009 ; Appellate Division, Second Department plaintiff employer sued its attorneys for an employee benefit provision which was drafted by attorney firm 1, which was then taken over by attorney firm 2. At issue was whether the…