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.
Ripa v Petrosyants 2022 NY Slip Op 01336 Decided on March 2, 2022
Appellate Division, Second Department can be difficult to follow The AD decision basically reverses Supreme Court on almost all of its findings, and yet leaves a case more or less intact. There are two lessons to be taken from this decision.
The…
A case with multiple court reversals on reargument, starts and stops in the litigation itself ends, for the moment in a tolling order. Tavares v Calcagno & Assoc., LLC 2022 NY Slip Op 30482(U) February 16, 2022 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 156499/2021 Judge: David Benjamin Cohen took place…
In Cohen Tauber Spievack & Wagner P.C. v Mehulol Publs., LLC
2022 NY Slip Op 30401(U) February 1, 2022 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 652426/2021 Judge Bluth determined the merits of a case alleging that the attorneys failed in both the Supreme Court case as well as in a Rabbinical court…
Plaintiff suffered a large loss in arbitration. Several documents could have been offered, but were not. Malpractice?
Supreme Court dismisses the claim in All Vision LLC v Paduano & Weintraub LLP 2022 NY Slip Op 30464(U) February 9, 2022 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 653605/2021 Judge: Andrew Borrok finding that Federal…
The difference between a sua sponte order and an order upon a motion made upon notice may be slim at times. In Meyers v Becker & Poliakoff, LLP 2022 NY Slip Op 01246 Decided on February 24, 2022 Appellate Division, First Department the motion was discussed at a preliminary conference and defendants were told not…
In EDJ Realty, Inc. v Siegel 2022 NY Slip Op 01147 Decided on February 23, 2022 Appellate Division, Second Department affirmed dismissal of a legal malpractice claim concerning a notice of appeal from a hybrid complaint against the DHCR.
“The defendant attorney represented the plaintiff in a hybrid proceeding pursuant to CPLR article 78 and…
It can be difficult to overestimate the acrimony between siblings when the parents’ estates and inheritance comes into play. As an example see Schmidt v Burner 2022 NY Slip Op 01191 Decided on February 23, 2022
Appellate Division, Second Department. Here days before her death, the mother seeks to disinherit one son. The attorneys are…
As in all settings, attorney or legal malpractice can be a defense to a fee claim by that attorney. In Matter of Hart, 2022 NY Slip Op 22018, Decided on January 12, 2022, Surrogate’s Court, Rockland County, Judge Cornell sets forth some of the rules.
“SCPA § 2110 authorizes the Court to fix and determine…
Protostorm, Inc. v Foley & Lardner LLP, 2022 NY Slip Op 01107, Decided on February 17, 2022, Appellate Division, First Department is a short decision concerning a small act with big consequences. Waiver of “joint and several liability” may have taken place in the pleading or during the litigation. In either case, it seems…
An claim unstated in the pleadings, but which surfaces in discovery may be utilized by Plaintiff. In Leading Ins. Group Ins. Co., Ltd. (U.S. Branch), Inc. v Friedman LLP 2021 NY Slip Op 03411 [195 AD3d 418] June 1, 2021
Appellate Division, First Department a unique theory of damages was considered, and then rejected.
“Defendant…
