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.
Privity is a keystone in the legal malpractice world. Here. in Jarmuth v Wagner 2022 NY Slip Op 33698(U) October 28, 2022 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 161816/2019 Judge: Dakota D. Ramseur a co-op shareholder sues the Co-op’s attorney derivatively on behalf of the Co-op.
“In December 2019, Plaintiff Sandra…
Sometimes a legal malpractice claim against attorney 1 can trigger disclosure of attorney-client communications with attorneys 2 and 3, if there is a sufficient relationship between the communications with other attorneys and the legal malpractice claim. Not so in 2138747 Ontario Inc. v Lehman Bros. Holdings, Inc. 2022 NY Slip Op 06087 Decided on…
“Actual Innocence” is a huge burden to overcome. It is necessary to demonstrate that standard in order to plead a legal malpractice claim arising from representation in a criminal defense case. Even if you can show actual innocence, as in Broomes v Legal Aid Socy. of N.Y. City, Inc., 2022 NY Slip Op 06101 Decided…
The First Department decided Basile v. The Law Offices of Neil Brickman, P.C., this week, giving further dimension to how it decides continuing representation issues. Here, communications with the law firm, even after a long period, can suffice for continuing representation.
“Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Shawn T. Kelly, J.), entered on or about…
Grace v. Law is a Court of Appeals case which holds that a legal malpractice case cannot successfully be pursued unless an appeal of the underlying negative outcome is commenced when it is likely that the appeal will succeed. In a novel argument, plaintiff in Colucci v Rzepka 2022 NY Slip Op 06043 Decided on…
Schnur v Balestriere 2022 NY Slip Op 05297 Decided on September 27, 2022 Appellate Division, First Department describes what the First Department thinks a good Judiciary Law § 487 claim requires: deceit, egregiousness and good pleading.
“The Judiciary Law § 487 claim against Balestriere should not have been dismissed. Although “unfounded” allegations are not actionable…
In Bei Yang v. Pagan Law Firm P.C. Slip Opinion No: 2022 NY Slip Op 73132(U), Decided on October 18, 2022 the Appellate Division, First Department, determined that Plaintiff may not use a pseudonym in a legal malpractice law suit.
“And plaintiff-appellant having moved, pro se, to suppress allegedly improperly obtained privileged information of psychotherapy…
Sometimes the AD finds that a consent to change attorney is the terminating event for continuous representation and sometimes not. Ellison v Seltzer, 2022 NY Slip Op 05786
Decided on October 18, 2022 Appellate Division, First Department is a case where the “mutual understanding of the need for further representation” trumped the “failure to…
Lee v Leifer 2022 NY Slip Op 05793 Decided on October 18, 2022 Appellate Division, First Department is the startling story of an attorney who told his client that it was better and more efficient not to answer a complaint. The strategy worked well, until it didn’t.
“The Leifer defendants (Leifer) represented Lee in a…
In York v Frank 2022 NY Slip Op 05738 Decided on October 12, 2022 Appellate Division, Second Department, after discarding the statute of limitations as a reason to dismiss, the Second Department took up an alternative reason to dismiss. This was done even though the parties did not address the issue.
“Although the Supreme Court…
