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.
One of the elements in legal malpractice is privity. That term means, a contractual relationship. Cllients often want to sue their opponent’s attorney, usually for the things they did for the opponent. For the most part, one may sue only his attorney, the is, the attorney who was retained.
One exception comes up with opinion…
What happens when the plaintiff may or may not have been able to collect from the underlying defendant? In attorney malpractice, it is always the obligation of plaintiff to prove that "but for" the negligence of the attorney, he would have had a successful or better outcome. What happens when the entity he would have…
A common law retaining lien entitles the outgoing attorney to retain all papers, securities, or money belonging to the client that came into the attorney’s possession in the course of representation, as security for payment of attorney’s fees. Arising from Judiciary Law 475, it is enforceable only by retention of the items themselves and is…
Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP bring this case analysis and warning:
Washington Supreme Court Applies Ethical Prohibition Against Malpractice Waiver/Release Without Written Notice of Right to Independent Counsel to Situation Involving Only Potential Claims
In re Greenlee, ___ Wash. 2d ___, ___P3d___, 2006 WL 2852751 (2006)
The Washington Supreme Court interpreted the written notice provision in RPC…
Michael Hoenig writes in todays NYLJ that a recent decision in toxic torts bears great scutiny.
"Put the New York Court of Appeals’ Oct. 17 decision in Parker v. Mobil Oil Corp.1 on your radar screen. Do not label this as yet another toxic tort case. Like a stealth bomber, it has some potential to…
Case which went to the Supreme Court of Kentucky [the author calls them the supremes]. No proof that the attorney had anything to do with the will. The case.
Here is a case from Texas on legal malpractice insurance coverage.
"Medmarc Cas. Ins. Co. v. Craytor, 2006 WL 2882563(E.D.Tex. Oct 06, 2006); 2006 WL 3030566 (E.D.Tex. Oct 23, 2006) (NO. 5:06CV95)
Judge: Caroline Craven/ David Folsom
Holding: Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff’s Counterclaim GRANTED
COMMENTS:
This case arises out of a legal malpractice claim asserted…
This is a car case from West VA, where the attorney failed to pursue an underinsured motorist claim. In this particular case, plaintiff loses. Details
North Carolina has a very strict set of Appellate Rules. Briefs are dismissed for 1 1/3 rather than double spacing. This blog asks whether this will lead to legal malpractice suits over tossed appellate cases.
The NYLJ article did not discuss legal malpractice, but one wonders. Attorney who was a physician actually was in hosptial and observed plaintiff prior to surgery. There were problems, and plaintiff was referred to the physician-lawyer for a med mal case. Physician-lawyer didn’t tell client that he had seen him in the hospital [???] and…
