Yesterday we discussed the plaintiff v. her own attorney part of Dupree v Voorhees ; 2009 NY Slip Op 09183 ; Decided on December 8, 2009 ; Appellate Division, Second Department . Today we look at Dupree v. her husband’s attorneys. Traditionally this type of case has been out of bounds. For policy reasons, courts
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 Triple-Header in Legal Malpractice and Judiciary Law 487
Dupree v. Voorhees, 2009 NY Slip Op 09183 ;Decided on December 8, 2009 ;Appellate Division, Second Department is an example of the breathtaking reversals that might happen on appeal, and how the law can "change" in the period between dismissal and the appeal. Today we will look at the legal malpractice part of this…
Contempt and Legal Malpractice in Matrimonial Law
Reading between the lines in Minkow v. Sanders, plaintiff was a difficult client. To begin, he was her third attorney. As a digression, defense attorneys in legal malpractice cases often tee off with the assertion that their client is the "third" or "fourth" attorney that plaintiff has had, and boot strap from that…
2 Sides of the Coin in a Fee-Malpractice Case
What do the parties really think in an attorney – fee dispute which totals in the $6 million range. Most attorney fee disputes are less than $50,000, In NY that qualifies for the court monitored Attorney-Fee dispute program Here, in a startling NYLJ article Nate Raymond writes about the Debevoise & Plimpton cases against Candlewood Timber…
Is is Legal Malpractice to Try Too Hard for the Client?
There are lawyers who try cases to the limit and there are lawyers who try too hard. This morning we were reading a NY Times article about the "capital panel.’ These are attorneys who will eventually represent the Guantanimo defendants at their Federal terrorism trials. A potential for the death penalty exists in these cases.…
The American Board of Professional Liability Attonrneys
We are proud to report that Andrew Lavoott Bluestone has been admitted as a Diplomate to the American Board of Professional Liability Attorneys. Andrew Lavoott Bluestone is the author and publisher of the New York Attorney Malpractice Blog
The American Board of Professional Liability Attorneys (ABPLA) is the only organization accredited by the American Bar…
When May a Receiver Sue for Legal Malpractice?
It’s a complex question, but in troubled financial times, legal malpractice law suits become more visible and valuable. Receivers, Trustees in Bankruptcy, and other fiduciary appointees all eye and measure pockets in an ongoing attempt to broaden and increase the fisc.
in COBALT MULTIFAMILY INVESTORS I, LLC, , -against- MARK A. SHAPIRO, UNITED STATES…
Account Stated Meets Legal Malpractice and a Change in the Rules
The rules concerning fee-sharing, and the precision of detail which must be given to a client. have changed. Now, one must be precise in the percentages between attorneys, lest a violation of the rule lead to the Court denying attorney fees at a later stage of the proceedings.
Judiciary Law 487 Claims Survives Even after Litigation Over
Judiciary Law 487 may be the oldest statute in the English-American Law world. It dates from 1275, just years after the Magna Carta, Once in a while we see a reference to Marbury v. Madison, 5 US (1 Cranch) 137 (1803) and think that perhaps this a law student or a new lawyer flexing some…
Subsequent Attorneys, Privilege and Legal Malpractice
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…