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.

It seems that the attorney here is the only innocent party. A phony law firm, fake lawyers, and lots of money stolen. “Family Admits Bilking $14 Million Through Phony Law Firm

Four members of a Staten Island family have pleaded guilty in connection with charges that they cheated homeowners and investors of $14 million in

Phen-Fen litigation gave rise to a big big fund. $200 million settled the case, but here the lawyers held onto about $126 million.”About 400 people should receive nearly $20 million held in a controversial fund controlled by three Lexington, Ky., lawyers in a lawsuit over the diet drug fen-phen, a judge has ruled.

Special Judge

Good cause for termination is not the same as malpractice. Attorney malpractice, the deviation from good and accepted practice, which proximately damaged the party, in which, but for the negligence of the attorney there would have been a different or better result is not the same as good cause for termination. Termination for cause has

“The first stone” analysis in this case is facinating. Legal malpractice action brought because plaintiff believed his prisioner beating municipal case was time barred. His attys did not bring the action at all. In Legal Malpractice case Judge now dismissed, saying:
“While, generally, suit must be initiated against a municipality and its agencies within one

Within the body of this legal malpractice case is a very interesting nugget. Suit against the opponent’s attorney may be permitted upon a showing of “malicious intent” even though there is no privity of representation [i.e. privity of contract.] A AD cite is given for this proposition, Poulson, 26 AD3d at 525.

Restaurant chain takes $25 a paycheck from employees for legal applications in immigration and hires law firm. Law firm fails to file papers, employees now must leave US for 10 years, being “out of status.” They sue, but only for monies taken; no hope of becoming US citizens. Question: Can they sue for legal malpractice