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.
Missing a court date is bad. Worse is having your computer e-mail system make you miss the date, and having the judge hold a hearing at which you have to produce your IT guy, all to explain how it happened.
Here is a Washington Post article telling how it all went bad.
"The trouble at…
About a year ago we wrote on a case in which a US Supreme Court brief and case were dismissed on technical grounds. Its pretty bad when a mistake is advertised by the US Supreme Court on such a big stage.
Here, a loss at the US Supreme Court has led to a legal malpractice…
Plaintiff in this case has been through the wringer, hiring an attorney in a car case and having that attorney refer out the case, 2d attorney lets the case go past statute, and 1st attorney suggests suing 2d attorney for legal malpractice. However, when client sues, Attorney 2 impleads Attorney 1. Then it gets interesting.
"After…
Hinshaw reports an Iowa case which holds that the client owns virtually the entire file when in dispute with the attorney. In New York, the case of Sage Realty Corp. v. Proskauer Rose, 91 NY2d 30 (1997) governs. In NY the client owns the file, and the attorney must reasonably provide the file, including…
Plaintiff’s decedent was incapacitated prior to death and a guardian was appointed. The estate argued with the guardian over fees, and hired attorneys. Settlement was reached, but the estate now argued with the attorneys over fees, and whether the settlement was appropriated.
The attorneys withdrew and sued for fees. For the balance of the procedural…
The Wall Street Journal reports this:
"What do you call a surgeon who wears a suit? A defendant. It’s an old joke, but at any given moment in the U.S., approximately 60,000 medical malpractice suits are being tried, many involving multiple physician-defendants. That’s roughly 10% of the physician population. And once a physician experiences the…
Motion for summary judgment made by defendant 125 days after note of issue. Plaintiff did not object, and may have consented. AD held that only court may grant extensions, stipulations are void. Motion dismissed.Coty v County of Clinton ;2007 NY Slip Op 05803 ; Decided on July 5, 2007
Appellate Division, Third Department
New rules for service of trial subpoenas are now coming into effect.
Section 1. The civil practice law and rules is amended by adding a new section 2303-a to read as follows: § 2303-a. Service of a trial subpoena. Where the attendance at trial of a party or person within the party’s control can…
Motion practice, expecially cross-motion times have been changed.
"Section 1. Subdivision (b) of rule 2214 of the civil practice law and rules, as amended by chapter 177 of the laws of 1984, is amended to read as follows: (b) Time for service of notice and affidavits. A notice of motion and supporting affidavits shall…
Plaintiff was the husband in a divorce, and defendant was his attorney. Husband was advised to tape his wife’s telephone calls. He gets arrested and hires attorney to defend. Attorney does not tell client of plea offer, and client eventually is convicted. Lawyer is disbarred and client now sues.
This case is from North Dakota…
