Many times in legal malpractice cases, courts find causes of action to be duplicitive. Some of this arises from over-pleading. As an example, plaintiff may plead legal malpractice, negligence, breach of contact, breach of fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment, fraud, and so on Courts will trim these causes of action, all the while assuring plaintiff that
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.
Plaintiff Continues with Legal Malpractice and Unjust Enrichment and Fiduciary Duty Claims
In a well-reasoned opinion from the SDNY, Judge Koeltl determined that plaintiff may continue with three claims against the attorneys. In SMARTIX INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION, a.k.a. SMARTIX INTERNATIONAL, LLC, – against – GARRUBBO, ROMANKOW & CAPESE, P.C. AND ANTHONY RINALDO, 6 Civ. 1501 (JGK); UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK; 2009 U.S.
What Creates an Attorney-Client Relationship for Legal Malpractice Purposes ?
Privity of contract is an essential in legal malpractice litigation. One may not sue the opponent’s attorney; only one’s own. What makes for privity of contract? As all know, no writing is necessary to create a contract. So, can there be privity of contract without a retainer agreement. Putting aside Rule 137 questions about the…
Attorney and Client Battle over Fees and Legal Malpractice
So often, the practice of law seems to have devolved into an attorney v. client battle over the work and fees. Here in Morelli & Gold LLP v. Altman, NY Slip Op 31492(U) we see a large scale battle over a child support/custody case in which there has been litigation, fees, fee dispute, trial de novo…
Attorney’s Representation and Comments not Legal Malpractice
Legal Malpractice litigation is a world apart from the rest of regular litigation ; it has its own rules, it has its own prinicipals, and is the sole set of rules written by attorneys to regulate attorneys. Criminal legal malpractice is a world within a world…not unlike a russian doll set.
Here, in a Federal District…
“Unsettled Law” and Legal Malpractice
Attorneys deal in areas of well settled law and in areas of "unsettled law." Clients have problems or issues which exist, no matter how settled the law is in that area. Attorneys are held to a standard of reasonable care in all aspects of their representation. How does one square these contradictory settings?
An answer…
Privity and Lack of Proximity in Legal Malpractice
In Weksler v Kane Kessler, P.C. ;2009 NY Slip Op 04957 ;Decided on June 16, 2009 ;Appellate Division, First Department we see the fatal duo of lack of privity and lack of proximity. The short story is that Plaintiff, while married to decedent was promised a life-long annuity of $ 4000 per month, said to…
When is a Helicopter Crash Like Legal Malpractice?
The short answer is when there is spoliation. Spoliation is the intentional or negligent destruction of evidence. It may take place prior to, or during litigation, and it always deprives one side of the use of otherwise admissible evidence.
In the helicopter case, it seems to have been intentional. IN RE HELICOPTER CRASH NEAR WENDLE …
Res Judicata and Bankruptcy Fee Hearings
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…
Matrimonial Legal Malpractice, Fees and Summary Judgment
Clients often ask whether it matters that their legal malpractice case comes as a defense to an attorney fee case. It should not, but judges are swayed by the procedural setting of cases before them. Does it make a difference whether the legal malpractice case is a main action or a counterclaim? Taking a look…