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.
Plaintiff in Gersten v. Lemke, 110651/07 ,Decided: February 14, 2008 ,Justice Marylin G. Diamond ,NEW YORK COUNTY Supreme Court was indicted. He was convicted. He successfully had the indictment dismissed, after demonstrating ineffective assistance of counsel.
Start the legal malpractice case now? Yes, but there is little use for the Fed. District Court finding…
The general rule is that one may not sue an attorney, unless that attorney was working for you. Privity is the concept that the attorney was hired by you, and worked for you. You may not sue the other party’s attorney, no matter how badly you were treated in court by that attorney.
As in…
In this case, Tanger v Ferrer ,2008 NY Slip Op 01866 ,Decided on March 4, 2008 ,Appellate Division, First Department . the following mistakes led Supreme Court to grant summary judgment to plaintiff: "This Court found that the tenders were conditional and therefore did not act to stop the accrual of interest on the…
The case of Orchard Motorcycle Distributors v. Morrison Cohen shows just how easy it is to lose a motion for summary judgment, and not on the merits, either.
1. Plaintiff did not submit an expert’s affidavit in opposition to an expert’s affidavit. Fatal mistake.
2. Plaintiff did not deal with the collateral estoppel issue of…
The problem of the uninsured or underinsured defendanat-attorney is illustrated in this West Virginia Case., Horkulic v. Galloway.
Plaintiff settled th case for the full policy limit of TIG, and in a deal with the defendant attorney, took his putative bad faith claim, and agreed not to seek the attorney’s personal assets. Along…
The Magna v. Coburn case in which the bank is suing attorney Coburn over "steering" to a settlement structuring company which eventually swindled clients, took an unusual turn. Lead attorney Rex Carr was called away from counsel table to the witness stand.
"In an odd twist Magna’s lead lawyer, Rex Carr, was called to testify…
Familiar with SLAPP suits? Unfair Competition Law? Probably not, unless you are in California. Here is a blog entry from Kimberly Kralowec on a legal malpracice case in California which illustrates a California litigation tactic. There, the Upper Deck co. v. Orick Herrington case tells us how the SLAPP law works.
"A recent unpublished opinion…
Depositions in New York used to be a variant of the Wild West rodeo. Bucking broncos, trying to stay up on the horse, pick your metaphor. New attorneys soon learned the usual tricks, "I’ll take that under advisement", "I direct the witness not to answer" and all that. With Administrative orders things have changed here. …
Attorneys are generalists, no attorneys are specialists, no they can handle anything? The profession is of two minds on this question. Any attorney, duly admitted, etc. may offer opinion evidence on the behavior of another attorney, and any attorney might simply step up to the counsel table and give an appearance. Once that happens, the…
NJ has some traps for the unwary in legal malpractice, and this case showcases several of them. In CELESTE GUIA PINTO, v.MCGOVERN, PROVOST & COLRICK, SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY ,APPELLATE DIVISION DOCKET NO. A-3186-06T53186-06T5 we see the Puder rule on settlements, the rule on certificates of merit, and an application of the Sheridan …
