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.
The NYLJ reports this case:
Goldston v. Bandwidth Technology Corp., 112098/04
Decided: March 6, 2007 Justice Rolando T. Acosta
NEW YORK COUNTY
Supreme Court
"This matter, tried before the Court without a jury, primarily revolves around whether the retainer agreement executed by plaintiff Alan M. Goldston on behalf of his law firm, Goldston & Schwab…
Another blog blurb from Scottsdale:
"Attorneys know that deadlines matter, but in this age of electronic filing and 24-hour drop boxes it was just a matter of time before a court would have to address a filing that was, say, a mere six minutes late. That is what the United States Court of Appeals for…
Legal malpractice requires legal representation, while breach of fiduciary duty can be had by a non-attorney as the Scottsdale Personal Injury Lawyer tell us.
"Many people do not understand the difference between legal malpractice and breach of fiduciary duty.
Legal malpractice arises when an attorney owes someone a duty of care and, by an act…
Here is a divorce legal malpractice case from the Divorce Law Journal which illustrates the "privity" question.
"Issue and Holding:
Whether an attorney owed any duty to an opposing party in a divorce case. The Court held no, the attorney owed no duty under the facts of this case.
Facts:
Baker filed for divorce from…
Appellate Law & Practice of California reports this legal malpractice case:
"CA1: Legal malpractice claims by 3d-party based on defrauded ponzi scheme fail
International Strategies v. Greenberg Traurig, 06-1790. This case involves a lot of people and firms that I really don’t want to smear. Not because I don’t like smearing, but because I…
"Four years of lawsuits and federal investigations had worn down the leaders of Jenkens & Gilchrist. Many of their biggest earners were leaving the law firm and taking their prized clients with them. And it had become hard to attract talent, with no end in sight for the firm’s problems.
Also Online
04/01/07:…
Anthony Lin in the NYLJ reports:
"Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have entered into a nonprosecution agreement with Dallas law firm Jenkens & Gilchrist over its past involvement in illegal tax shelters, a scandal that has already fatally crippled the once-thriving firm.
Between 1998 and 2003, the firm’s Chicago-based tax shelter practice provided hundreds of legal…
Read thisarticle, if only for the photograph of Sgt. Schultz, and the "I knew nothing" tag.
"The case of Consolidated Sports Media Group v. Godwin Gruber, which is scheduled to go to trial next month, reads at times like a John Grisham novel, complete with allegations of malpractice, the aforementioned pump-and-dump stock scams…
Hinshaw reports that there is no insurance coverage for this attorney-attorney law suit over referral fees. "The Louisiana Supreme Court held that a lawyer’s claims made policy did not require the insurer to defend an insured lawyer who was sued by another lawyer for allegedly fraudulently inducing him to accept a client whose claim was
Here is a report of the case in which Reed Smith is accused of conflict of interest and legal malpractice.
"In Axcan Scandipharm v. Reed Smith, Axcan, a pharmaceutical company, claimed that the firm engaged in an impermissible conflict that led to disclosure of confidential information by the firm to a second client.
According to…
