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.
Successfully pleaded Judiciary Law § 487 claims are not a given. Default judgments are even rarer, but here is one example. In Ezra Huber & Assoc., P.C. v Genevieve Lane Lopresti
2022 NY Slip Op 06910 Decided on December 7, 2022 Appellate Division, Second Department the default judgment was affirmed.
“The plaintiff commenced this action…
Federal Ins. Co. v Lester Schwab Katz & Dwyer, LLP 2022 NY Slip Op 07149 Decided on December 15, 2022 Appellate Division, First Department is a case by the insurer versus its attorney arising from what was most likely a personal injury claim. Overlooking the actual email sent by the law firm, Plaintiff sued for…
Pro-se litigation often raises difficult questions of whether attorneys (relying on regular practices) have said something deceitfully, or whether the Pro-se simply does not understand how litigation procedure works. Delo v O’Connor 2022 NY Slip Op 34135(U) December 7, 2022 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 652721/2022 Judge: Arlene P. Bluth is…
Belair & Evans LLP v Rizzo 2022 NY Slip Op 06986 Decided on December 08, 2022 Appellate Division, First Department is an example of the Court taking things into its own hands and directing a show cause order why a counterclaim should not be dismissed. Then the Court dismissed all the counterclaims.
“Order, Supreme Court,…
A recurring situation where a law firm moves to be relieved shortly before a motion for summary judgment or before trial is often linked to the lack of an expert, or the reluctance of the law firm to hire (and expend funds for) an expert. Of course, this is not the only reason law firms…
Buried in the lede is the notion that legal malpractice claims were dismissed, and no appeal presented. Breach of fiduciary duty claims in Jadidian v Goldstein 2022 NY Slip Op 06695
Decided on November 23, 2022 Appellate Division, Second Department were dismissed as well, but an appeal was attempted on the basis that the statute…
Rosenbaum v Myers, 2022 NY Slip Op 33975(U) November 18, 2022 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 652971/2019 Judge: Lucy Billings is a most unusual story. Attorney and divorce client meet, successfully obtain the divorce, fashion the attorney fee payment based upon investment advice given by the attorney to the client,…
Cases are settled with releases, and more and more often, non-parties to the litigation are included in the release along with the parties. Releases will be for the parties, their insurers, their agents, and often, their attorneys. Such was the case in 179-94 ST LLC v Hassan 2022 NY Slip Op 33870(U) November 16, 2022 …
After a long hibernation period, Grace v. Law is now appearing more frequently in legal malpractice cases, mostly as a defense to statute of limitations arguments. Kreutzberg v Law Offs. of John Riconda, P.C. 2022 NY Slip Op 06475 Decided on November 16, 2022 Appellate Division, Second Department is one example. Not raised in Supreme…
Earlier, we discussed the elements of a Breach of Fiduciary Duty Claim as enunciated in Shan Yun Lin v Lau 2022 NY Slip Op 06279 Decided on November 9, 2022 Appellate Division, Second Department. Today, legal malpractice elements.
“The existence of an attorney-client relationship is an essential element of a cause of action to recover…
