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 a common motif in legal malpractice. Daniel Wise of the NYLJ reports that the Kings and Queens Civil Courts calendars are now online, that the balance of the NYC civil courts will soon follow, as well as many upstate City courts.
"The court system expanded its Web site yesterday to…
A unique New Jersey obligation in legal malpractice is akin to a NY medical malpractice certification of merit. In NJ, plaintiff must file a certificate that the case has merit. Surely it is simply a formality? As this case demonstrates, it is not.,
"We have reviewed plaintiff’s contentions in light of the record and applicable…
Hinshaw reports this case in which the claim is that witnesses were inadequately prepared, and thus suffered damage.
"A Georgia appellate court recently rejected a claim by clients of a law firm that their lawyers were liable to them for certain adverse consequences stemming from the lawyers’ allegedly insufficiently preparing them to testify as witnesses…
Jenkins & Gilcrist, subject of more than a few blog blurbs, is in the news again.
"A former client of Jenkens & Gilchrist sued the Dallas-based firm in federal court in New York on June 8 alleging malpractice and breach of contract in connection with the firm’s work on a reverse merger in 2004.
The…
The rule is that an attorney may not do business with a client, may not accept loans or give loans. There are exceptions, and with enough disclosure the transaction may not result in suspension, but in this particular story:
"A prominent Rochester personal-injury attorney has been suspended for 18 months for a series of…
This blurb from Hinshaw raises more questions than it answers. Read it and try to decipher:
"A federal district court has held that absent reliance by the client of a lawyer, the lawyer’s apparent partner was not liable to the client in a legal malpractice action against the lawyer for the cost of litigation arising…
Hinshaw reports this months old case about legal fee disgorgement. We reported on it about a month ago. Wilson Elser, a big defense firm which handles legal malpractice defense cases, unsuccessfully defended itself on this case.
"Ulico Casualty Company (“Ulico”) is an insurer that specializes in trustee and fiduciary liability insurance. In the early 1980s…
Attorneys move from firm to firm more often now than in the past. The NYLJ and Law.Com’s top articles are all about firms reconstituting themselves, and movement of lawyers from hither to yon.
Here is a case from New Jersey about a successful legal malpractice case in which plaintiff recovers from one set of defendants…
This woman was the victim of a rape and assault in a housing complex, due to lax security. Attorneys hired to sue the building didn’t show up for trial. Now she has settled the legal malpractice case against the attorneys.
The Appellate Division, Second Department recognized that there had been potential legal malpractice in the way this law firm handled equitable distribution in this case, and its failure to protect its client. Wife was client, husband had real property, and due to a failure to file a lis pendens, the real property became…
