Among the many weapons a court has is the rarely used injunction against future case filings. After all, it’s a citizen’s right to sue. One of our favorite New Yorker cartoons is the young child asking her mom when she will be old enough to sue someone. Plaintiff in this case won’t be suing anyone
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.
Legal Malpractice is Different, After All
In this particular case, it is possible to read through the entire Appellate decision and not even know what was alleged against the attorneys. Rather, on summary judgment, the court determines that plaintiff could not have won against the insurer, hence, legal malpractice case is dismissed. Unlike other types of cases, the fight is usually…
Is it The Economy or Just Plain Legal Malpractice?
Law.Com reprints an interesting article from the Texas Lawyer on the relationship between the economy and legal malpractice litigation. One theory is that plaintiffs are more in need of recovery, and will either bring more legal malpractice law suits, or are willing to sue over smaller sums. A second theory is that the economic downturn…
Are More Motions to Dismiss Filed in Legal Malpractice Cases?
We do not have firm statistics in this area, but from a general overview of litigation it seems to us that a higher percentage of legal malpractice cases are subject to motions to dismiss under CPLR 3211(a)(1) than are other types of cases. We have thought about why this might be. A benign explanation is…
Just Another Form of Legal Malpractice
In the high flown world of patent infringement, large legal fees are the norm. Here, from law.Com we see the story of $ 10 million in legal fees, all spent in a fruitless effort to enforce a patent infringement case against Palm. In the end, plaintiff paid its attorney $ 7 million plus in fees…
“Helping the Competition” Legal Malpractice Dismissal Motion
We reported on this case last week; it’s an example of big law legal malpractice. The general view of legal malpractice limits its reach to small cases involving personal injury and blown statutes of limitation. However, cases such as this one are huge.
From Law.Com and the Blog of Legal Times: "A team of…
Judgment In Huge Punitiive Damage Legal Malpractice Case
The principal that attorneys may not be held in legal malpractice over questions of judgment, strategies at trial and the like is given especial prominence in this case. Client is found liable for $ 7 Million in patent infringement and $20 million in punitives, for "especially reprehensible " behavior. On appeal, attorneys succeed in reducing…
Stalking, Custody, Arrest and Legal Malpractice
It’s the rare case in which attorney and judge are both defendants, and the rarer case still in which allegations of stalking, habeas corpus, child custody, contempt are joined with legal malpractice. What makes this case even more unique is that it is set in Federal District Court. This is a legal malpractice trifecta. Legal…
After Termination, Who Keeps the Records and Who Pays
Legal Malpractice actions often start with the termination of the target attorney, and even more of them have the common aspect of take-overs by successor attorneys. What happens to the file, how does it get transferred and who pays for the transfer?
This weeks decision in Moore v. Ackerman, Supreme Court, Kings County is…
Bankruptcy Fee Awards and Legal Malpractice
We’ve written in the past on the collateral estoppel trap in legal malpractice. While fee arbitrations in State Court proceedings probably have the greatest absolute number of applications, bankruptcy court fee awards may well cover a greater dollar figure. Here, in In re D. A. ELIA CONSTRUCTION CORP., Debtor. 07-CV-754,08-CV-103 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE…