Loyala University Law School is presenting its 4th Annual National Civil Trial Competition. This year it is based upon legal malpractice arising from a wrongful criminal conviction.
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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.
Long Statute of Limitations in Legal Malpractice
A South Bergen NJ newspaper reports a very long statute of limitations in a legal malpractice case. Seemingly spread over more than 10 years, plaintiff was injured in a supremarket personal injury accident, and the case was dismissed. It appears to be some sort of calendar dismissal.
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Barry Scheck and Legal Malpractice
In a small article, the New York Times Metro Briefings reports on a legal malpractice case against Barry Scheck, famous for the Innocence Project and for his association with Johnny Cochran at Cochran, Neufeld & Scheck.
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Legal Malpractice and Experts
Upon what may an expert in an legal malpractice trial rely? What are the bases for legal malpractice expert testimony? A partial answer is given in First Union National Bank v. Benham, an 8th Circuit case this month.
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Legal Malpractice and Harriet Miers
Buried within the political and social commentary on the president’s nominee, Harriet Miers, is a nugget of legal malpractice information. Blue Mass. Group tells us that while the nominee was a managing partner at Locke Liddell she approved settlement of two huge legal malpractice cases. One settlement was for an allegation that the law firm…
Legal Malpractice: Whose attorney is it?
The New York Law Journal reports a case which quotes a famous 1697 line from a William Congreve play: “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, and hell has no fury like a woman scorned.” In this legal malpractice case, a matrimonial, the issues is whether the attorney was his or her’s.
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Legal Malpractice in US and India’s Lawyers
The Wall Street Journal reports today that “More U.S. Legal Work Moves to India’s Low Cost Lawyers.” Eric Bellman and Nathan Koppel write that Pangea3, a New York based global legal outsourcing company has more than 25 lawyers in india and over 20 US customers.
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Legal Malpractice in Small and Large firms
Does legal malpractice occur more often in small or large firms? What are the indicators or causes of legal malpractice on an institutional level? These issues are discussed and analyzed by My Shingle://www.myshingle.com in an interesting article entitled Malpractice Isn’t Only A Small Firm Problem.
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Legal Malpractice and Legal Ethics
For a great roundup of legal ethics and legal malpractice prevention articles see Ben Cowgill’s Blog.
Legal Malpractice in Real Estate
NYLJ reports in its “Trends in Real Estate and Title Insurance” special report that 16% of all legal malpractice claims are real estate related.
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