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.
In New York for the most part, venue is found in the county where plaintiff or defendant resides or has its principal place of business. Here is an interesting case from Missouri, in which plaintiff successfully started and kept the case in the county [or district] where the wrong took place.
"State ex rel. …
Legal malpractice carriers are always looking for a way out. Coverage exclusions, notice provisions, each week out a very significant number of potential claims. Notice provisions are found both in the initial [usually yearly] applications, as well as the obligation to inform the carrier as soon as a claim is even a potential.
Here is…
NY Lawyer, via Legal Inteligencer reports on this big number legal fee disgorgement case in Philadelphia.
"A Philadelphia judge has ruled that a Montgomery County law firm should pay $5.2 million, including $1 million in punitive damages, for attorney fees the judge said the firm unlawfully accumulated during its collection of delinquent municipal and…
This story fromDaily Business Review about cruise line legal malpractice is a twist on the usual. Generally the story is about a lost plaintiff’s case based on jurisdiction, or the lack thereof. Here the story is considerably more inflammatory, Plaintiff’s lawyer Jay Wingate has been in the news lately, with tales of chasing cases…
New York Lawyer reports that Aretha Franklyn, the Queen of Soul is in danger of losing her mansion over a missed tax payment, which was supposed to be handled by her attorney. Here is the story from the AP:
"Aretha Franklin could lose her home to tax collectors. The singer says an attorney’s mistake caused…
Reported today in the NYLJ, the case of Sapir v. Resnick, Supreme Court, Nassau County , Decided February 26, 2008 illustrates an important point. The attorney’s mistakes are but the starting point in any legal malpractice case. Vitality of the underlying case is all important too.
Here, "Justice Palmieri held that malpractice had occurred "when…
Blackwater’s Attorney Wiley Rein, is involved in litigation over the deaths of Blackwater employees in Iraq. Tied up in this case are the questions of the military, contractors to the military, and the rules which apply to them. Do the rules changes in a war zone, do active military operations in the immediate area change the…
"The $5 million malpractice case against star litigator Michele Roberts of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld will proceed to trial in D.C. Superior Court.
In a hearing that lasted more than three hours on March 7, Judge Jennifer Anderson weighed motions to dismiss, as well as a host of…
Legal malpractice insurance policies require, in general, that the insured notify the carrier of all incidents and claims, on penalty of forfeiting coverage. Here is an interesting article from Wiley Rein on this issue:
"The United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, applying Florida law, has held that a letter that…
Pleading in legal malpractice can be tricky. Here is a recent New York case Shefa Unlimited, Inc., et al. respondents, v Amsterdam & Lewinter, 2006-10191 SUPREME COURT OF NEW YORK, APPELLATE DIVISION, SECOND DEPARTMENT 2008 NY Slip Op 1937; March 4, 2008, Decided, which reports the unsuccessful attempt to add new allegations against a…
