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.
This has to be today’s big story. This will be all over the web, and will be reported in much greater detail. But the NYLJ reports:
"A federal judge has ruled unconstitutional most of the sweeping new restrictions on attorney advertising introduced earlier this year by the New York courts.
The restrictions, which went into effect…
Here is a story from Texas. Prominent engineer’s downfall: negligence or conspiracy ?
"The former director of a city sewer program is suing several engineering firms and three Austin lobbyists, alleging that they conspired to get him fired.
Bill Moriarty previously led the Austin Clean Water Program, the city’s $200 million effort to fix old…
The illinois Legal Malpractice Blog writes about the statute of limitations:
"A recent Illinois Appellate decision (Warnock v. Karm Winand & Patterson) stemming from a failed real estate sale addresses the issue of when the two-year statute of limitations begins to run in a legal malpractice case – is it 1) when the underlying action…
Law.Comreports that :"As Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw readies for potential claims arising out of its representation of failed commodities brokerage Refco, the Chicago law firm’s work for another bankrupt company has already triggered a $17 million suit against it.
The bankruptcy trustee for defunct health care management company CMGT Inc. has sued its…
Randy Johnson of Dallas says that legal malpractice litigation now resenbles cannibalism. "A decision this week requiring Houston trial lawyer John O’Quinn to pay at least $35.7 million to former clients may be a harbinger of a legal trend — lawyer cannibalism.
"When I started suing other lawyers in 1981, no one else wanted…
Defense attorneys in legal malpractice cases often try to use a Notice to Admit [CPLR 3123] to get over the hump of some point within their burden of proof. A notice to admit is really for use with non-controversial factual situations, for example, whether a documents is genuine, or to avoid proofs of an underlying…
Majority shareholders, minority shareholders and the company’s attorney. Who has the right to sue if things go wrong? The answer depends on who has privity with the attorney. Here is an Ohio case on the issue.
Reported by Legal Newsline: "Attorneys for majority owners of close corporations — ones allowed by law to act more informally…
Oregon has a state sponsored legal malpractice program. Here is an idiosyncratic view of the program and its imminent demise?
"My little law office was thriving. We did so many revocable trusts that my paralegal could turn them out in her spare time and I stopped paying attention. My lapse in this particular instance meant…
An interesting article in today’s NYLJ discusses General Counsel and in-house attorney issues. True Tales From the Law Department by Susan F. Friedman talks about the problems recently surfacing for these attorneys. One caught our interest:
"Health Care Entity
In an action against a health care entity in the U.S. District Court for the Southern…
Zibell v. County of Westchester, 10866/06 ;Decided: June 20, 2007 ;Justice William J. Giacomo
WESTCHESTER COUNTY Supreme Court .
Here, the attorney but not the client was sanctioned. Will further problems follow?
From the decision: "If the credibility of court orders and the integrity of our judicial system are to be maintained, a litigant…
