Kadah v Kadah 2023 NY Slip Op 32889(U) August 18, 2023 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 152026/2022 Judge: Richard Latin concerns a legal malpractice claim brought in New York concerning legal work performed in a Florida estate. Where should the claim be brought and if brought in NY is it materially
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.
Privity and the Estate Administrator
Kadah v Kadah 2023 NY Slip Op 32889(U) August 18, 2023 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 152026/2022 Judge: Richard Latin has an excellent discussion of how privity of contract, a general requirement in legal malpractice claims, can apply both individually and when the law firm is representing a person as an…
A Familiar Workers Compensation-Personal Injury Trap
Kohler v Polsky 2023 NY Slip Op 04373 Decided on August 23, 2023 Appellate Division, Second Department describes a familiar situation in which a construction worker, injured on the job, retains an attorney to file a Worker’s Compensation claim, and assumes that the attorney will also file a personal injury claim. Often, the WC attorney…
Testimony as a Witness in a Criminal Case does not violate Judiciary Law 487
Tueme v Lezama 2023 NY Slip Op 03036 [217 AD3d 715] June 7, 2023
Appellate Division, Second Department touches on false arrest, malicious prosecution, negligent infliction of emotional distress and violation of Judiciary Law 487.
One of the claims against the attorneys was that the attorney gave false testimony in a criminal case against him. …
Foreclosure, Bankruptcy and Legal Malpractice
Lam v Weiss 2023 NY Slip Op 04308 Decided on August 16, 2023 Appellate Division, Second Department is the story of what happens when an attorney takes on a case and lets it sit for a period of time. Taking place right around Labor Day, with a foreclosure auction scheduled in the next several days…
No Summary Judgment To Either Side
Johnson v Watts 2023 NY Slip Op 32825(U) August 14, 2023 Supreme Court, Kings County Docket Number: Index No. 502133/2018 Judge: Peter P. Sweeney is a textbook example of a legal malpractice claim. Client severs her finger in a door accident and sues the municipal landlord. The attorney fails timely to file the notice of…
Judiciary Law 487 and the Statute of Limitations
Catsiapis v Pardalis & Nohavicka, LLP 2023 NY Slip Op 04185 Decided on August 9, 2023 Appellate Division, Second Department recites the unusual loss of three years of statute of limitations protection for a Judiciary Law 487 claim when it is brought up along with a legal malpractice claim. The New York Court of…
Legal Malpractice and “Mental Illness”
It is unusual for plaintiff to allege that mistakes were made by the attorney due to “mental illness.” Nevertheless, this claim is enunciated by the Court in Allard v Gumenick 2023 NY Slip Op 32696(U) August 4, 2023 Supreme Court, New York County
Docket Number: Index No. 158750/2022 Judge: Lisa S. Headley. The Court denied…
Departure? Yes Proximate Cause? No
Walsam 316, LLC v Thompson & Knight LLP 2023 NY Slip Op 32693(U) August 2, 2023
Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 156653/2022 Judge: Dakota D. Ramseur provides a detailed analysis of the first two of three elements of legal malpractice: departure from good practice and the proximate cause result of that…
The Very Difficult Matrimonial Legal Malpractice Standard
Casey v Exum 2023 NY Slip Op 04106 Decided on August 2, 2023 Appellate Division, Second Department illustrates the difficult standard in matrimonial legal malpractice cases where the underlying matrimonial was settled. Without relying on the Katebii line of settlement case law, summary judgment was nevertheless granted because it was practically impossible to prove that…