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.
One unique element in legal malpractice is the "but for" requirement… that "but for" the legal malpractice there would have been a different or better result. Defendants in legal malpractice are eager to flaunt this requirement, and argue that the legal malpractice must be the "sole" cause of the injury.
The Second Department now clarifies…
Plaintiff in this Long Island Legal Malpractice case was a company that wanted to create and bottle barbecue sauce. They looked for a site, and unfortunately came up with a building on a hazardous waste site. However, only the attorneys knew of this small problem, and they did not let the clients know.
"RITTER, J.: The…
Law.Com reports on events in the California Bar discussion on requiring disclosure of legal malpractice insurance coverage. "Attempting to mollify critics, a California Bar committee on Thursday recommended a significant change to a proposal that would require attorneys to tell clients if they don’t carry malpractice insurance.
But one member opposed to disclosure insisted…
What does an Ohio legal malpractice case teach us in New York? This case illustrates the "but for" aspect of legal malpractice. While it is not a different burden than showing "proximate cause" in other litigation [we’ll be talking about a 2d Department case in the coming days that illustrates this principal] it is always…
Here is the case , Laddcap Value Partners LP v. Lowenstein Sandler PC, 600973-2007
Decided: December 5, 2007 ,Justice Carol Robinson Edmead ,NEW YORK COUNTY
Supreme Court
Counsel for Plaintiff: Danzig Fishman & Decea
Counsel for defendant: Arkin Kaplan & Rice LLP
We reported on this abusive practices/gender sarcasm case last week.
"I am…
This case from Washington state, Schmidt v. Coogan, illustrates two common situations in legal malpractice. The first is on the lawyer’s side. Client slips and falls on spilled shampoo in a store. She goes to the attorney, who happily takes the case. He tells the client that it’s a good case, and he will…
Lawyers handle cases for people who are sometimes desperate. While it may little matter whether a large corporations loses a million dollars in a deal, many times an attorney deals with much more dire circumstances for the client. They may have lost a life’s savings; children may suffer.
This tragic story involves an attorney who…
Here is a scholarly article on Canadian legal malpractice trends from the Practice Pro blog site. Its conclusion is that wills & estates legal malpractice cases are on the rise, and will continue this trend.
Risk managers look to frequency and severity in their analysis of trends. Frequency is the raw number of cases. Severity…
Everyone knows that oil drilling is a cutthroat buisness. Here is an interesting story. Did the law firm capitilize on inside knoweldge? Plaintiff’s story is that it is in the niche business of developing old oil wells, and was in the process of buying from another business in bankruptcy. They had to hire a W.Va.
New York Lawyer reports: "Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman is one step closer to being forced to return about $4 million to a former client. These bankruptcy legal malpractice cases are becoming more and more frequent.
The Chapter 11 trustee for SonicBlue Inc. filed a statement on Tuesday supporting a November motion, filed by SonicBlue, asking…
