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.
Rubin v EFP Rotenberg, LLP 2020 NY Slip Op 32714(U) August 19, 2020
Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 651825/2015
Judge: Barbara Jaffe discusses what disciplinary or governmental investigation materials may be relevant to a claim of professional malpractice.
“Pursuant to CPLR 3 IOI(a), “[t]here shall be full disclosure of all matter material and…
CPLR 214(6) governs the statute of limitations in both legal malpractice and accounting malpractice. The onset is similar, but slightly different. Missing in accounting malpractice is the concept of continuing representation. Darby Scott, Ltd. v Michael S. Libock & Co. LLC
CPAs 2020 NY Slip Op 34343(U) Supreme Court, New York County
Docket Number: 653044/2013…
Professional negligence is different in different professions. Attorneys are held to a standard of practice which requires them to to engage in greater background investigation than do the rules for accountants. Deane v Brodman 2021 NY Slip Op 01842 [192 AD3d 577] March 25, 2021
Appellate Division, First Department discusses whether an accountant may rely…
Bankruptcy and legal malpractice are often paired in real estate and in general corporate situations. The legal malpractice claim is often accompanied by severe financial loss, and bankruptcy can play a role is bringing a standstill to collection or take-over situations. There is a complex set of rules concerning who has the standing to bring…
“”An action to recover damages for legal malpractice must be commenced within three years after the accrual of the cause of action” (Bullfrog, LLC v Nolan, 102 AD3d 719, 719-720; see CPLR 214[6]).” Thus starts and ends most legal malpractice case discussions of the onset of the statute of limitations. That date…
Merely having a good legal malpractice claim is not enough. Plaintiff must properly prosecute the claim. Forgetting the potential irony of losing a legal malpractice case for failing to follow a court rule, Allstar Elecs., Inc. v DeLuca 2020 NY Slip Op 07018 [188 AD3d 1121]
November 25, 2020 Appellate Division, Second Department demonstrates the…
Legal malpractice is unique; this phrase recurs he because claims against attorneys are subjected to a greater scrutiny and are granted a much higher level of latitude. Consider whether a physician is ever granted a dismissal because the patient is “sophisticated”?
Yet, in Scarola Malone & Zubatov LLP v Ellner
2021 NY Slip Op 31199(U),…
It really does not matter how many times one goes to the well; there is either water or no water. In Armatas v Kestenbaum 2020 NY Slip Op 07846 [189 AD3d 1319] December 23, 2020 Appellate Division, Second Department a city attorney-defendant kept at it until the case was dismissed on all grounds, actual or…
Burke, Albright, Harter & Rzepka LLP v Sills 2020 NY Slip Op 05322 [187 AD3d 1507] October 2, 2020 Appellate Division, Fourth Department is an upstate slow legal fee – legal malpractice estate claim that percolated for 16 years before ending abruptly.
“In 2016, the third attorney to represent the coexecutors was granted permission to…
United States Life Ins. Co. in the City of N.Y. v Horowitz 2021 NY Slip Op 01877 [192 AD3d 613] March 25, 2021 Appellate Division, First Department os the rare case in which the Appellate Division soundingly finds that a Judiciary Law § 487 claim is stated.
“Judiciary Law § 487 (1) provides that an…
