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.
CPLR 3211 (a)(1) is the "documentary evidence" portion of a general pre-answer motion to dismiss. The standard applied to dismissal motions under this particular sub-section is:
"On a motion to dismiss based upon documentary evidence, dismissal is only warranted if the documentary evidence submitted conclusively establishes a defense to the asserted claims as a matter…
A "client’s unilateral belief" in the attorney-client relationship is insufficient to prove privity between the attorney and client, sufficient for a legal malpractice lawsuit, but subsequent behavior or acts by the attorneys might provide the necessary proof. Here, in Terio v Spodek ; 2009 NY Slip Op 04412
Decided on June 2, 2009 ; Appellate…
In the past six months, new life has been breathed into Judiciary law 487. It may well be the oldest statute in Anglo-American jurisprudence. Dating from1275 the statute provides that an attorney who is guilty of any deceit or collusion, may be guilty of a misdemeanor and held for treble damages.
Since the Court of…
In both Federal District Court and in State Court in New York attorneys have a "retaining lien" under Judiciary Law 475. In Federal District Court the rule is set forth in Katz v. Image Innovations Holdings Inc., 06 Civ. 3707;Decided: May 27, 2009; District Judge John G. Koeltl
U.S. DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF…
The collapse of a hedge fund gives rise to a legal malpractice claim by various of the investors. The hedge fund impresario is convicted of securities fraud, and then turns around to help the investors sue the funds’ attorney.
In Eurycleia Partners, LP v Seward & Kissel, LLP ; 2009 NY Slip Op 04299…
Aside from the precatory "You’ve got to be crazy…",
" on occasion, true mental incompetence does collide with questions of legal malpractice, and in this case, criminal conviction. In ALLEN WOLFSON, -v- AVRAHAM MOSKOWITZ, 08 Civ. 8796 (DLC);UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK’; 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45822; May 29, 2009…
This recent Court of Appeals Case, Wyly v Milberg Weiss Bershad & Schulman, LLP
2009 NY Slip Op 03628 ; Decided on May 7, 2009 ; Court of Appeals discusses the rights of a client to "its" case file for use in a later proceeding…which is often a legal malpractice action. Wyley is the offshoot …
In Leone v Silver & Silver, LLP ; 2009 NY Slip Op 04204 ; Decided on May 26, 2009
Appellate Division, Second Department we see that merely settling a case does not deprive plaintiff of the right to sue the attorney, so long as the settlement was effectively compelled by the acts of the target…
Slip and fall cases are a major part of the personal injury oeuvre, and personal injury litigation remains a large part of the world of the bar. Accordingly the laws of personal injury, and specifically those relating to trips and falls are widely known and highly important. Mistakes and bad outcomes in personal injury litigation…
Some time ago the legislature passed a statute of limitations for legal malpractice, overruling the Court of Appeals which permitted both a 3 year and a 6 year statute. Of course, now there is but a single 3 year statute. At the same time, it was determined that no matter whether one calls the attorney’s…
