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.
New York Lawyer, an offshoot of Law.Con brings this story:
"Two inventors of snowboard bindings accuse their lawyers at Seyfarth Shaw and Burnett, Burnett & Allen of doing a legal face plant that caused them to lose a patent infringement case.
In a lawsuit filed in Santa Clara County, Calif., Superior Court last month, Richard…
We originally reported this case on 9/28. Here is a well written decision concerning Akin Gump in which some causes of action are dismissed. Tott, Contract, Fraud, Fiduciaries…how do all of these different theories of liablitiy interact? Read on:
"Defendant’s motion, pursuant to CPLR 3211 (a) (7), to dismiss plaintiffs’ second, fifth…
Here is an appellate decision in the DuPont environmental and cancer case. There is no mention of legal malpractice here. Note however, the precluded experts, the precluded documents, and how the dissent paints the majority as corporate lackeys.
The case:"Glen Strong (Strong) and his wife, Connie, collectively "the Strongs," were among thirty-seven plaintiffs who…
As any first year law student can tell you, pleadings are required simply to put the other side on notice of the general proposal of the complaint: You injured me in tort, by doing "x". One simply puts the other side on notice, and if they are interested [as they always are], then they ask…
From NY Lawyer we get this report:
"Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman partners Paul Tummonds Jr. and Patrick Potter are the targets of a $50 million malpractice complaint filed by former client Capitol Hill Group.
According to the complaint filed on September 7 in D.C. Superior Court, the plaintiff owned property at 700 Constitution Ave. N.E.…
Blogs and trials have been a recent confluence. Dr. Flee, who blogged his own trial was one [well reported by the New York Personal Injury blog of Eric Turkowitz.
Now, jurors are coming into the mix. Law.com editor and blogger Robert J. Ambrogi suggests that the failure to root out and research these bloggers could…
Wisconsin legal malpractice insurers have published a breakdown of legal malpractice claims. Here, reported by Bonnie Shucha in the University of Wisconsin blog, are the most commonly sued for mistakes:
Calendaring – 23%
Failure to know or properly apply law – 14%
Planning error in choice of procedures – 13%
Inadequate discovery & investigation…
Tort and Contract are alternative explanations of differing duties. In tort, the duty arises simply from the agreement to perform, and then failing to heed the standard of care, with damages. In contract, the dury arises from an agreement to perform certain specific tasks. As an example, the agreement to prosecute an appeal. when that…
This [and the last?] century seem to be overwhelmingly linked with social changes and legal process. Law suits have proliferated, there are more lawyers then ever, social change may happen more because of a docket than any other reason. Here is an example: the lemon law. Previously caveat emptor, this simple social protective device…
We reported on this yesterday, and here is the decision in this unusual dual representation Nazi looting and holocost case coupled with legal malpractice claims.
