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.
Although the court reporting service got the cite wrong [we’ll get it later today], here is yet another law school case concerning jurisdiction: A New York Plaintiff hires a Pennsylvania attorney to litigate in Connecticut." Scheuer v. Schwartz
"CIVIL PROCEDURE. LONG ARM JURISDICTION. TRANSACTION WITHIN STATE. Plaintiff, the estate of a New Yorker who retained defendant…
Continuous representation, which arose in medical malpractice, and was imported to legal malpractice does apply to all professional malpractice cases, but in this recent federal case, which we reported earlier, it does not save plaintiff when a new contract is arrived at each tax year. Williamson v. Price Waterhouse.
Here the case is reported…
We have no idea why a coin collecting web site features this exposition on legal malpractice, but here it is:
"« Tips for Beginning Coin Collectors When is a Settlement Not a Settlement?
By Gerry Oginski When its not recorded in open court, or when the injured victim dies before he receives the settlement…
Like all the big issues, this law suit may later lead to a bar exam question.
"U.S. District Judge Manuel Real approved a roughly $49 million settlement in the BAR/BRI class action Monday — but only after rejecting incentive payments to five class representatives, claiming they had a conflict of interest.
The judge also delivered…
College buys land, nearby municipal college gets municipality to condemn the land, buying it in eminent domain while original college puts up a building. Outcome is that municipal college wins, gets land and buiding, deposits $ 1.8 million for the building, and loser college sues its attorney.
"An empty $3 million classroom in Riverside County…
Attorney represented infant in a medical malpractice case. Case was valued at $ 20 Million. Just prior to trial, defendants offered $ 1 Million. Attorney rejected, tried and lost the case. Later, he asked the client for $ 160,000 in disbursements. She refused.
Case then went on to a legal malpractice in which it was…
Personal injury awards are tax free. Other awards are taxable. Here is a question in the middle: Is an award for mental anquish in a federal whistleblowing case taxable?
" A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that awards for mental anguish are taxable, which reversed what it said just 11 months ago. The decision came in…
In comparison to the prior article, you need not put the insurer on notice until and unless you reasonably know that there really is a claim against the attorney. In another short subscription blurb:
"MADISON, Wis. – An insurer owes a duty to defend and indemnify its insured against claims of malpractice because the insured…
Here is a short blurb from the subscription Meeley reporter on a case where the attorney failed to put the insurer on notice of a legal malpractice claim against him, even though he sent a letter to the insurer.
"ATLANTA – No coverage is available for a legal malpractice suit filed against an insured attorney…
Banks routinely assign mortgages to each other. That is one reason that FHA conforming mortgage and forms are prevalent. The banks take in application fees, points, etc., and then sell blocks of mortgages to others, at a discount.
Legal malpractice cases, even when arising from mortgages may not be similarly traded in Florida. Here is…
