Andrew Lavoott Bluestone

Subscribe to Andrew Lavoott Bluestone's Posts

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.

Follow:Read more about Andrew Lavoott BluestoneAndrew Lavoott's Linkedin Profile

In     Shaya B. Pac., LLC v Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker, LLP    the question of whether a law firm defending a client has an obligation to determine whether there is excess insurance available. 

This case, determined by the Second Department, has the following issue:

"The principal issue presented on this appeal concerns whether a…

Privity is a requirement in almost all cases of legal malpractice.  One particular sticking point is the negligently created estate.  Who has the right to sue, if anyone?  Here is a Texas case which differentiates between the damaged estate [think: unnecessary tax, costs, loss of assets] and a disappointed will beneficiary.

In this case, the…

Insurers, defense counsel, lecturers all tell us that attorney fee suits, and threats, are a major source of discipline and legal malpractice litigation.  Here is yet another example.

"When a client hesitated over paying his bill, Richard Ledingham threatened her with criminal prosecution for "theft of services" and he didn’t stop there: He also warned…

Here is an article from Anthony Lin of the NYLJ which tells of Chicago Ins. Co’s successful move to drop a legal malpractice insurance policy for an attorney who was recently sentenced to jail for fraud.

"A federal judge in Manhattan has permitted a professional liability insurer to rescind coverage for a lawyer recently sentenced…

 Meat Loaf  argues that "2 out of 3 ain’t bad" but it does not work in Legal Malpractice. Proving that defendant was your attorney, and that defendant breached a duty of care is insufficient..  You must prove proximate cause as well.  There is little so heartbreaking as a trial verdict in which the first and second…

Moving boldly where no legal malpractice warning has been heard before, this blog blurb argues that failure to have adequate e-discovery professionals may constitute legal malpractice. 

 "The ability to spot the cases when meta data may be recovered is an important skill for any practitioner. The more important skill, however, is the ability to know…

In a non-legal malpractice case, Federal Judge Sidney  H. Stein made rulings which inform the substantive basis for legal malpractice cases.  "But Southern District Judge Sidney H. Stein said in a Dec. 8 decision that a violation of the disciplinary rule proscribing noncompetes could not itself be the basis of a suit for damages.

The…