Plaintiff sells meat, made loans to a restaurant and its owner. It was partially repaid, over many years by the restaurant, which added a payment to the meat bills. All things end, and the owner of the meat company died; then the restaurant went under. Meat company went to the attorneys and asked them to
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.
Promissory Notes and Legal Malpractice
Plaintiff retains attorney to handle promissory note case, and a default judgment is obtained. Defendant owns real property, yet no lis pendens is filed. Is this legal malpractice? In Ali v Fink
2009 NY Slip Op 08766 ;Decided on November 24, 2009 ; Appellate Division, Second Department we see the following:
"Several months later, the…
Divorce, Criminal Charges and Legal Malpractice
When do divorce, crime and legal malpractice intertwine? In this case, at the intersection of divorce and fighting ex’s In short, plaintiff had a child with GF, and they were separating, and at the same time arguing over custody and support. GF charges plaintiff with child abuse, and a series of investigations start. Attorney represents…
Can a Client be too Poor for Legal Malpractice?
The decision doesn’t tell us in what capacity the attorneys represented the client, but they are now in suit over legal fees, with a legal malpractice counterclaim. As we read this case, we wondered whether the time and effort was worth it. Will there ever be a collection of fees?
A Garden or Varietal Version of Fee Claim and Legal Malpractice Counterclaim
Almost as popular as attorney fee cases are defenses of legal malpractice. Here, in Sieratzki v Sei Global, Inc., NY Slip Op 32656(u), all the basics are laid out. Attorney represents client for a longish period of time, and substitutes into an Arbitration entitled HL Group Partners, LLC v. Sei Global, Inc He worked on the case…
Its Not Legal Malpractice, but Breach of Fiduciary Duty When Defendant is Not Even an Attorney
It does not happen often, but non-lawyers sometimes come to represent clients. An impostor? A simple clerical mistake? We don’t know how it happened in this case, but in Natural Organics Inc. v Anderson Kill & Olick, P.C. ;2009 NY Slip Op 08472 ;Decided on November 17, 2009 ;Appellate Division, First Department "Plaintiff…
Legal Malpractice Fallout from the Modeling Industry
Monique Pillard, president of Elite Models, is the plaintiff in this legal malpractice case, She was a defendant in a highly significant employment discrimination case revolving around an asthmatic worker who was fired, and the harassment and smoking that took place all around her.
in Pillard v. Goodman, Supreme Court, New York County…
Termination, Legal Malpractice and Quantum Meruit
There are some basic rules in legal malpractice litigation about fees. One of these rules is that an attorney may be terminated at any time by the client, either for cause or without cause. A corollary rule is that when an attorney is terminated for cause, he is due no compensation.
That’s a pretty stark rule, and…
Old and New Law in Attorney Fee Disputes
New York traveled through a sea change in its attorney disciplinary and ethical rules when the new rules were enacted in April. Prior to the change, DR 2-107 did not require that a client be notified of the "percentage split" of fees between multiple attorneys working on a case; only the fact of multiple attorneys…
Divorce Allocutions and Legal Malpractice
Legal malpractice plaintiffs who are suing for representation in a divorce action are routinely placed between a rock and a hard place, when asked at the settlement of their divorce action whether they are satisfied with attorney’s representation. They are told to say ‘yes" and often do, simply to end the torture. This simple "yes"…