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.

Our meme on this blog is that Legal Malpractice litigation is ubiquitous and omnipresent.  All right, what exactly does that mean?  It’s not just blown statutes in personal injury, and it’s not just unanswered questions in matrimonial suits, and it’s not even just bankruptcy trustees and ponzi schemes.  It’s the basis commercial transactional world too. 

In the law, "attorney’s fees are awarded…" carry awesome power.  Traditionally, the American rule is that each side bears its own attorney fees unless there is an agreement or a statute which grants attorney fees to the prevailing party.  Attorney fees are awarded in L & T litigation, based upon the usual rental lease; in discrimination cases by

Plaintiff owns property, plaintiff borrows money on property, plaintiff and lender reach a complicated right of first refusal agreement, lender and plaintiff enter into new lending agreements for different businesses, and then it all falls apart.  The transactions end in mutual law suits in Nassau and Suffolk and a legal malpractice and Judiciary Law 487 case

We have noted the trend towards legal malpractice cases issuing out of Bankruptcy proceedings.  We believe the trend arises from the greater number of large bankruptcy filings in the corporate world, and the smaller pool of assets available to the creditors.  In this case, Law Com reports that Pillsbury Winthrop will re-pay and forego $

Right now the legal press centers around attorney lay-offs and the general economic situation.  In this case homeowners were completely unable to either pay the mortgage or obtain new financing.  Eventually they went to a lender whose interest rate exceeded 25%.  Will we be seeing more of this type of case as the mortgage market

 Refund Plus Life Insurance policies were purchased by Long Island attorneys including Daniel Buttafuoco.  When Boston Life refused to refund the premiums litigation erupted.  In the Virgin Islands, the insurance company asked for a declaratory judgment that it did not have to refund the premiums.  Things spiraled downward, and ended in EDNY legal malpractice litigation.  From

One may lose the right to bring a legal malpractice case based on earlier attorney fee dispute resolution.  In this case , Margrabe v. Sexter & Warmflash, PC,  07-CV-2798, District Judge Kenneth M. Karas, SDNY, we see just how the process operates.  Plaintiff retains attorneys to represent her in a shareholder derivative matter.  Attorneys were