Should the client’s legal malprctice award be for the entire sum or should there be a deduction for the contingent fee the negligent attorney would have won? The debate runs like this; [For the full amount] The client will have to hire a malpractice attorney to sue the negligent attorney, and will have to pay
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.
Mistakes and Legal Malpractice
There is a hierarchy of attorney malpractice mistakes, recognizable by even a layperson. At the head of the list is the failure to start an action, whether a result of failure to file a notice of claim under the General Municipal Law, The Public Authorities Law, the Court of Claims act, or other claim-notice…
Michigan Legal Malpractice Client who would not Quit
Clients come in all stripes. Some are reasonable, some not. This client hired the Ernst law firm, but a fee dispute arose. Ernst sued for fees and he counterclaimed for legal malpractice. just before trial, his attorney quit. Why? We don’t know. But, an attorney who quits just before trial suggests problems with the case or…
Mayer Brown, Private Equity Trading and Legal Malpractice
The NYLJ’s Anthony Lin reports:
"The private equity firm that owned a controlling interest in failed commodities brokerage Refco Inc. has filed a $245 million lawsuit against Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw, accusing the law firm of helping to conceal the sham transactions that led to Refco’s collapse.
Boston-based buyout firm Thomas H. Lee…
What is Legal Malpractice?
Malpractice is a professional’s failure to use minimally adequate levels of care, skill or diligence in the performance of the professional’s duties, causing harm to another. In New York, attorney malpractice is defined as a "deviation from good and accepted legal practice, where the client has been proximately damaged by that deviation, but for which,…
Attorney wins Medical Malpractice Cases, Gets sued in Legal Malpractice
This shocking medical malpractice case was won by attorney Larry Eisenberg in California. Reading to the bottom, even though this attorney cracked the med mal case, he is now being sued in legal malpractice by the first client in the liver series.
"The University of California has agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle 35…
Attorney Did Not Investigate the “Advisor” and is Sued in Legal Malpractice
California attorney was approached by a new client. Elder Law Answers reports that the new client, an elderly woman came with an "advisor" for whom she wanted to get a power of attorney. The advisor was helping the client by supplying vicodan and marijuhana. When the advisor stole her money, she turned and sued…
Going Too Far in a Deposition Can Get You Sued
We know that there are now specific rules about depositions in New York, and we are familiar with the "barking dog" deposition case here too. New Jersey has its own story:
"Rough spots are common on the road of civil litigation, but it’s not every day that a plaintiffs attorney sues his adversary for asking…
Lawfirm Cleared of Trying to “Pick the Lock”
Lawfirm looked at party’s web site and found documents which were supposed to be protected.
"Although the archived pages were supposed to be shielded from public view, the protections failed and lawyers at Harding Earley Follmer & Frailey in Valley Forge, Pa., did not hack their way in, Eastern District of Pennsylvania Judge Robert Kelly…
Did This Husband Stalk his Wife’s Attorney?
This case from Long Island is tantalizing. Attorney represents wife in a divorce proceeding, and is stalked by husband. Attorney successfully obtains a $ 300,000 verdict for intentional infliction of emotional distress, on a counterclaim. Verdict is reduced and reduced again, but…
Eves v Ray 2007 NY Slip Op 06098 Decided on July 17, 2007 Appellate Division…