One of the more intriguing aspects of the attorney fee and disputes field is the interplay of a strongly put rule to attorneys, and the consequences of ignoring that rule. The rule: "You must have a retainer agreement." What happens when an attorney sues for fees, yet failed to have a retainer agreement as defined
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.
Case is Dismissed, Time Passes By and Plaintiff Loses a Legal Malpractice Case
Plaintiff suffers a personal injury trip and fall, and hires attorney 1 to sue the landlord. The landlord is sued. Case continues and eventually an inquest is ordered. At the inquest, the Court tells the attorneys that they need medical records. This seems to be an elementary point, since it’s well known that one needs…
Jurisdiction and Arbitration in a Legal Malpractice Case
New York corporation has a California case. An attorney comes calling, soliciting business and asking the corporation to hire the California attorney. They agree, and in the retainer agreement are two items. One is a jurisdiction choice and one is an arbitration clause. Problems arise, and a fee dispute/legal malpractice counterclaim starts. Will it be…
Disgorgement in a Breach of Fiduciary Duty-Legal Malpractice Case
Reisner v. Litman & Litman PC is a motorcycle – car collision case in which plaintiff was driving his motorcycle in Nassau County. He was driving on a road that had become known to be dangerous. At this particular intersection there had been a large number of turning left accidents, which later was said to be…
Representing Both Sides and No Retainer Agreement in Legal Malpractice Case
A series of loans, a single attorney in the transactions, a failure to file the mortgage, a defense that the clients should have filed the mortgage themselves, a loss of $ 750,000. How can this happen to sophisticated lenders?
The question is not exactly answered, but the picture that emerges from Brija v. Fernandez …
A Side Trip Throught Bankruptcy, Factoring and Legal Malpractice
The rapid transferring back and forth of rights and liabilities, through assignments, factoring and bankruptcy is highlighted in Maggioni v Clyde Meredith Schaefer, Esq., NY SlipOp 32544 [Sup.Ct. New York County, Wooten. J]
Apparently IFT International Inc. was a worthwhile football. It and its assets bounced back and forth between Bankruptcy Court and Supreme Court, with…
Continuous Representation in a Two Part Legal Malpractice Case
Gatto v Burke & Burke, NY Slip Op 32511, Nassau County, Justice Bucaria illustrates a two part transactional represent ion by attorneys of the clients in a business sale case. Facts are simple: plaintiff sells restaurant to X and uses target attorneys as transactional counsel. Sale documents do not have a security interest for Plaintiff-seller. …
Privilege and Legal Malpractice
An attorney must carefully and assiduously guard his client’s confidences, secrets and communications with the attorney. This remains true until the attorney has to defend himself. Must this defense be to criminal charges, or to ethical charges only? The answer is set forth in a recently decided case in the First Department.Hélie v McDermott, …
Bankruptcy Hearings and Res Judicata
We have commented about the Collateral Estoppel trap in legal malpractice with regard to fee arbitrations and hearings. in short, when a court grants an attorney fee application, it implicitly determines that there can have been no malpractice, as the court may not award fees in the face of malpractice. Fee arbitrations and hearings in…
A Car Case, Some Mistakes, Legal Malpractice
An interesting phenomenon in legal malpractice is the persistence of errors in a long series of otherwise isolated incidents. DiGiacomo v Levine ;2010 NY Slip Op 06566 ; Decided on September 14, 2010 ; Appellate Division, Second Department illustrates how this hoppers.
Auto accident takes place and clients hire attorney 1. Attorney 1…