Real Estate sales and the plummeting economic scene have dominated the news cycles for months now. Legal Malpractice litigation often follows economic disturbances, and this case, Walker v. Berman, 2009 NY Slip Op 50887(U) ; Decided on May 4, 2009 ; Supreme Court, New York County ; Stallman, J. is an example. In this case
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.
Can This Happen in New York and is it Legal Malpractice
Questions of attorney billing, expenses and disbursements often surface in the guise of a legal malpractice defense. Did the attorneys over bill ? Did they over-charge for expenses? May a law firm use Lexis or WestLaw as a profit center? For example, if the law firm is paying a flat fee for legal research, may…
Huge Akin Gump Legal Malpractice Verdict
This case has been widely reported, and we covered it a month ago, too. Here, from the Blog of Legal Times we read about the $ 72 million legal malpractice verdict based upon patent law.
"Yesterday, a federal jury in San Antonio slapped Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld with a $72.6 million judgment for…
Failure to Appeal and Judiciary Law 487 in Legal Malpractice
Two of the hardest causes of action to prove and prevail upon in legal malpractice are the "failure to appeal" claim and one under Judiciary Law 487. Failure to appeal claims are difficult because one must not only prove that the attorneys could have and failed to file an appeal, but one must also prove…
Out of State Attorneys and Legal Malpractice
Originally dismissed in Supreme Court, this case was re-instated by the Appellate Division, First Department last week. Mortenson v Shea ;2009 NY Slip Op 03611 ;Decided on May 5, 2009
Appellate Division, First Department is a situation in which a New Jersey law firm was retained to sue a New York law firm for…
Did Plaintiff Settle her Way into a Legal Malpractice Case?
This case took several readings to try and sort out the story. Plaintiff in this legal malpractice case, Citrin v Baratta & Goldstein ;2009 NY Slip Op 03597 ;Decided on May 5, 2009 ;Appellate Division, First Department was a defendant in the underlying action. There, "Following a five-day jury trial in a prior action alleging…
Intermittent and Continuous Representation in Legal Malpractice
In Byron Chem. Co., Inc. v. Groman; 2009 NY Slip Op 03465 ; Decided on April 28, 2009 ; Appellate Division, Second Department plaintiff employer sued its attorneys for an employee benefit provision which was drafted by attorney firm 1, which was then taken over by attorney firm 2. At issue was whether the…
A World Apart in Legal Malpractice
From time to time we forget that Louisiana is a completely different environment. Its laws are different, its emphasis is different, and even its terms are wholly different. Here is an article from Hinshaw & Culbertson on the case of McGuire v. Mosley Rogers Title Co., L.L.C., 997 So.2d 23 (La. App. 2008) in which plaintiffs…
Pro-Se Legal Malpractice Litigation
Attorneys gnash their teeth when litigating against pro-se parties. The thought is that the pro-se gets an advantage; they are not held to tight deadlines, are not the subject of rule-specific dismissal, nor are they required to hew to the line of traditional court procedure.
As an example, this pro-se plaintiff in Kleinser v …
Real Retention, Privity and Legal Malpractice
The informal way some people go about hiring an attorney is well documented in a new case decided by Justice Ling-Cohan in Camone v. Levy, 2009 Slip Op 30843(U). Here plaintiff trustee is of a generation skipping trust, and attorney is shown materials in order for him to tell plaintiff whether a federal estate tax return…