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.

A recent case from the Court of Appeals, published in this weeks advance sheets, discusses, in great legnth and lots of detail, the entire field of res ipsa loquitur. Judge Rosenblat gives a full law review analysis of the principal. This case is a must-read for all trial attorneys. Note the appearance of res

A very good article in today’s NYLJ, unfortunately not on their daily e-mail or front page, by Craig Ball. This article, entitled “10 Blunders Made During E-Discovery” is a blueprint for the attorney who must deal with e-discovery. The converse for an attorney? Naturally, legal malpractice. This is a field ripe for investigation.

Reported in the Savanah Georgia Morning News, this is an interesting legal malpractice settlement situation. “Lawyers for Savannah attorney Benjamin S. Eichholz are threatening to renege on a settlement of two lawsuits alleging he overcharged a group of his clients, according to documents filed in Chatham County State Court last week.

In response, plaintiffs’ lawyers

Andrew Zwirling writes in today’s NYLJ on the requirement of an attorney-client relationship in Legal Malpractice. He writes in Malpractice: Establishing Existence of Attorney-Client Relationship:
“In a legal malpractice action, a plaintiff must prove that the defendant-attorney failed to exercise the ordinary reasonable skill, care, diligence and knowledge commonly possessed by a member of

Here is a subscription article from West. For those without a subscription [like us], the article is entitled: “Are Small firms that cannot afford malpractice insurance a public danger?”

Legal malpractice insurance [a/k/a sleeping insurance] is not spectacularly expensive. Solos, and small firms really cannot afford not to have it. Even $ 250,000 coverage will

1.Moran v. McCarthy, Safrath & Carbone, P.C., 2005-05801, 2005-05806, (Index No. 17101/03) , SUPREME COURT OF NEW YORK, APPELLATE DIVISION, SECOND DEPARTMENT , Summary judgment for defendant attorney on the “but for” axis. Plaintiff unable to defeat SJ motion.

2.Cruciata v. Mainiero, Index 106151/04 , SUPREME COURT OF NEW YORK, APPELLATE