Andrew Lavoott Bluestone

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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.

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Attorney Malpractice is a litigation form with many highly sophisticated rules.  Attorneys make up the rules of attorney litigation.  Legal malpractice is subject to very stern analysis by judges.  Here is an article from Texas which sets forth rules on specificity there.

"In a further illustration of the need to avoid conclusory affidavits in summary…

It bills itself as "The Oldest Law Journal in the United States", and reports today on this legal malpractice dismissal in Pennsylvania.  Here, in an estate/inheritance legal malpractice, the case was dismissed on motion, and the appeal ran afoul of a Penn statute against vagueness.  What follows is a discussion of the statute:…

In a NYLJ article today [subscription], Professor Patrick Connors discusses letters of retention and litigation.

He writes:

"In this installment, we will take a few steps back to the inception of the representation and discuss a rule that affects the substantive rights of lawyers vis-à-vis their clients. ""Conclusion

Until the Court of Appeals finally speaks…

While many think of trial law as a form of gambling, here is the real thing.  Keno operator wants to break up a partnership and open his own gambling shop.  Hires attorneys to do the transactional work, and gets bad advice.  He wins  $1.6 million, which is reduced to $229,000.

"The Nebraska Supreme Court…

Lory v. Parsoff,  296 A.D.2d 535; 745 N.Y.S.2d 218; 2002 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 7584 
illustrates the danger of wrongly filing a security documents, such as a UCC1.  Of course, purchaser defaulted, and lender lost all.  In the legal malpractice case, attorney lost its fee paid to date, the cost of trying to fix the…

Law.Com reports that 2 Florida attorneys were disciplined for settling a big big case, and then agreeing to be paid not to take more cases.

"The Florida Supreme Court disbarred one plaintiffs lawyer and handed another a two-year suspension for taking a $6.4 million fee from the defense to file no more cases against E.I.

We reported on this case yesterday.  An ill known US Bankruptcy provision allows a 2 year period in which to bring an otherwise timely action, once the cause of action becomes an asset the estate in bankruptcy,

Victoria Kremen, who underwent unnecessary mastectory, should have had the benefit of "section 108 of the Bankruptcy Code…