This is an otherwise unremarkable story about an attorney who made a mistake. Mistakes happen all the time, and when a client is hurt by the mistake, the attorney is guilty of legal malpractice. Reasonable and competent attorneys make mistakes, and have insurance to cover their mistakes. This attorney was so unreasonable and obsessed, he
Andrew Lavoott Bluestone
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.
Stoneridge, The US Supreme Court, and Legal Malpractice
Front page of the Wall Street Journal is all about the US Supreme Court Stoneridge case. Asode fr, what it will mean for the securities industry, the WSJ believes this to be the largest potential widening of liability for lawyers.
Keep watching this case for its legal malpractice or lawyer liability issues.
"The Supreme Court…
Can a [Potential] Federal Judge Commit Legal Malpractice?
Here is an interesting report on a trial loss, potential legal malpractice at the trial level, and then a really big mistake on appeal. The last mistake is said to have been committed by a newly nominated Federal Judge Duncan Getchell, Jr.
"Two years ago, someone made a huge mistake at the Virginia Supreme Court…
Defamation, Bad Faith and Legal Malpractice
Here is a report from Law.Com on an appellate reversal after a trial on a bad faith and legal malpractice case. Plaintiff said that the insurance company should have offered to settle the case within policy limits, and that its defense attorneys committed malpractice. The jury agreed, while the judge did not. Now the appellate court…
Failure to Take Administrative Appeal and Legal Malpractice
Here is a case from the 2d Department in which plaintiff was represented by defendant attorneys in an EEOC suit. She lost at the administative lefel, and her legal malpractice suit alleged that defendants did not appeal from that original dismissal, committing malpractice. Their motion for summary judgment failed.Lamanna v Pearson & Shapiro ,2007…
Strip Searches at McDonalds and Legal Malpractice
Plaintiff’s case ended with a verdict. Now, the attorneys are battling over the legal fees generated. This McDonald’s Strip Search case reported in the Kentucky Law Review blog ended in a plaintiff’s verdict. Now the aftermath
"The battle over money in the McDonald’s strip-search case didn’t end with yesterday’s verdict.
Louise Ogborn’s original lawyers, whom…
Estate Planning Legal Malpractice in NJ
Here is a case which, on the one hand point up how disfunctional families can become, while on the other hand, point out how intertwined and difficult estate planning with mutual trusts and wills are. From a reading of this case, we think the family really did not like one of the sons, and the…
Mutually Exclusive Positions in a Legal Malpractice Case
This is a NJ case of legal malpractice, but it touches on "judicial estoppel" "mutually exclusive positions" the difference between "successive and alternative tortfeasors" and what is in New York called the "effectively compelled" rule. In New York a legal malpractice plaintiff must prove that a settlement was…
Virginia, West Virginia and a $50 Million Legal Malpractice Case
Two things cought our eye in this blog blurb from the West Virginia Business Litigation Blog. The first is that one can watch a webcast of appellate proceedings in W.Va. and the second is that this legal malpractice case is about a petition for appeal [similar to a cert request??] which is alleged to have…
Legal Malpractice in a Land Deal
Caveat: We can’t figure out this land deal from the News report. Here it is:
"Developers behind the failed Pendleton Station project are firing back in court documents against allegations that they misused loan money.
Benjamin Daniel Sr., Benjamin Daniel Jr., Elizabeth Daniel and Thomas Daniel, the family members who ran Pendleton Station LLC, Coastal…