The NYLJ and Law Com are both running a story on NJ permission to form law office subsidiaries. The lure is spinning off a new smaller law firm to handle a niche area, and then the ability to get rid of it later. At the very bottom is the unanswered question: will the subsidiarie’s malpractice
Andrew Lavoott Bluestone
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.
Contingency Fee Bill passes committee In NY
Read about the big changes sought in contingency fee medical malpractice and wrongful death cases, which was voted out of committee and goes to the Assembly in New York State. Details
Winston & Strawn wins Legal Malpractice Case
Even stripped of its defenses [see the earlier report] Winston & Strawn gains dismissal of the suit. The Appellate Division reversed Supreme Court, and dismissed. The Appellate Division found the allegations “conclusory” and that self-ineterest or conflict of interest had not been shown. Here, the Town was a “sophisticated client.”
Copmputer Associates Legal Malpractice Case
We reported on this yesterday, but here is a further blog blurb from the NYLJ on this legal malpractice case.
Continue Reading Copmputer Associates Legal Malpractice Case
Lawyers and Successor Lawyers in Legal Malpractice
Here is an example of the lawyer and successor lawyer question in Richardson v. Lindenbaum & Young, from todays NYLJ.
Continue Reading Lawyers and Successor Lawyers in Legal Malpractice
Chicanary Rule?
Here is a short blog blip from Chicago [Subscription required]. I guess that the defendant attorney argues that he is not required to engage in legal fictions in order to avoid legal malpractice. Details.
Chicago Legal Malpractice Case Dismissed
Here’s a short entry from Chicago [subscription required] about the dismissal of a legal malpractice case on “foreseeablitiy” Details
Common ways to Avoid Legal Malpractice
Here is a reprinted GO article on ways to avoid legal malpractice.
In Kentucky, the judgment rule takes a hit
In Legal Malpractice litigation, defendants have the benefit of the principal of the reasonable judgment rule, This more or less absolute rule has been changed in KY. As reported by Cassandra Crotty in the Illinois Legal Malpractice Blog, we see this new case. Details.
Justice Scalia jokes about Legal Malpractice
Sure, its buried in this article about a very serious topic: execution by lethal injection. The question is whether the current use of lethal injection is cruel and inhumne? Is any method of execution open to challenge? But the article reports that the Supreme Court crowd broke up when Justice Scalia asked whether the failure…