Plagiarism is the act of appropriating the intellectual property of others and passing the material off as one’s own creation [Webster, 2009] is a subject we thought was left behind in school. Really, all one needs to do is use a pair of quotation marks and a few words which say that we were clever
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.
Continuous Representation in Legal Malpractice
The decision in International Electron Devices (usa) LLC v Menter, Rudin & Trivelpiece, P.C.
2010 NY Slip Op 02343 ; Decided on March 19, 2010 ;Appellate Division, Fourth Department is not groundbreaking, but it is illustrious of what sometimes appears to be unwarranted deference to target attorneys on the question of the statute of limitations. …
Hindsight in Legal Malpractice Litigation
Humans have fingers, and are willing to point with them. Looking back over events and apportioning blame is not particularly limited to legal malpractice questions, but seems to be very prevalent there. Here, in Sklover & Donath, LLC v Eber-Schmid ; 2010 NY Slip Op 02002
Decided on March 16, 2010 ; Appellate Division, First…
A Primer in Jurisdiction and Account Stated
Client from outside New York is sued in Federal Court in New York. Client hires a NY attorney, and then the case shifts focus to a London Arbitration. When does the billing in NY end, when does the London case take over, and what happens when there is a billing dispute later? Justice Edmead’s decision…
Fraud and Avoidance of Fees in California and New York
In today’s NYLJ article by Drew Combs we see the interim outcome we see the basic outline of the attorney-client relationship gone bad.
"A California venture capitalist who has admitted to bribing New York state pension officials has sued Gibson Dunn & Crutcher over $1.3 million in fees the firm seeks for representing him during…
So, a plane crashed into your house? Is it Legal Malpractice?
This story about a Kentucky case comes from the Legal Profession Blog.
"A high school English teacher was sitting in her living room when a small plane hit the roof of the second story of her home. She suffered no direct physical injury but went into a state of shock, which led to health…
Hodgepodge of Pro-Se Legal Malpractice Claims
As further proof of the wide-ranging nature of legal malpractice litigation, we see in D’Elia v. D’Amico & Associates , 2010 NY Slip Op 30545, Supreme Court, Nassau County, J. McCarty a plaintiff who has claims against the target attorneys for estate matters for two relatives as well as in the purchase of a house.
One important…
Holland & Knight and a Mullit-Millions Legal Malpractice Law Suit
We’re not sure how to value this legal malpractice law suit reported in Law.Com in a story by Julia Kay. It’s not simply a $ 168 Million claim, it’s a class action case too.
"A Sarasota, Fla., judge dismissed some counts but let stand malpractice and breach of fiduciary duty charges in a lawsuit filed…
Judges and Potential Judges bring Legal Malpractice Case
Legal Malpractice cases arise from any number of interesting underlaying matters. In Shawandya L. Simpson v. Bernard M. Alter and Diana A. Johnson, the legal malpractice case alleges breach of fiduciary duty, conflict of interest, legal malpractice and wrongful disclosure of information.
Here, Simpson was running for judicial office in Brooklyn as was Diana…
Errors of Judgment Defense in the Second Circuit
One rule that we think distinguishes legal malpractice from all other areas of the law (with the possible exception of medical malpractice) is the question of judgment and how it might insulate the practitioner from claims of negligence. Here, in MARK A. MCCORD, -v.- MICHAEL G. O’NEILL, UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE…