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.
The Big Accounting firms in the US dispense CPA and some legal advice on taxes. How to parse one from the other is discussed in Boesky v Levine 2021 NY Slip Op 02059 [193 AD3d 403] April 1, 2021 Appellate Division, First Department.
“The motion court properly dismissed as time barred the legal malpractice claims…
The statute of limitations is approaching, yet the underlying case is not yet finished. How to handle this problem? Aydiner v Karasik Law Group, P.C. 2021 NY Slip Op 30781(U) March 15, 2021 Supreme Court, Richmond County Docket Number: 151944/2020 Judge: Ralph J. Porzio catalogues the possibilities.
“The key question in the instant Motion is…
Speculation on how a judge will rule can sometimes be elided, sometimes not. Denisco v Uysal 2021 NY Slip Op 04118 Decided on June 30, 2021 Appellate Division, Second Department was an unsuccessful example.
“In August 2015, the plaintiff retained the defendants to represent him in connection with a claim for workers’ compensation benefits based…
Almost uniformly claims of overbilling or unnecessary legal work and fees are dismissed as “duplicitive” of a legal malpractice claim. Dubon v Drexel 2021 NY Slip Op 04119 Decided on June 30, 2021 Appellate Division, Second Department is a rare example where the Court distinguishes between a real contract claim and one which is based…
Edelman v Berman 2021 NY Slip Op 04120 Decided on June 30, 2021
Appellate Division, Second Department presents an interesting real estate legal malpractice claim. It illustrates two points. First: No document is absolutely required to show an attorney-client relationship. Second: Violation of a statute or rule, combined with alleged damage can support a legal…
Plaintiffs, parties to a FTC action, were co-parties with another, whom it seems, was treated differently by the attorneys. InLabMD, Inc. v Buchanan 2021 NY Slip Op 04084 Decided on June 24, 2021 Appellate Division, First Department we see them strike out. Dismissal is affirmed across the board.
“Despite their characterization in the amended complaint,…
Lewis v Pierce Bainbridge Beck Price Hecht LLP 2021 NY Slip Op 03911
Decided on June 17, 2021 Appellate Division, First Department shows the high bar for a Judiciary Law § 487 claim. “Troubling” is just not enough.
“The alleged statements made by defendant Conley in the course of litigation are immune from liability for…
We’ve often asserted anecdotally that there are far more dismissals at the pleading stage in legal malpractice than in other areas of the law. Compare, for example, dismissals in medical malpractice. We believe that there are almost none. There are a lot of summary judgment dismissals in legal malpractice as well. Here, in Leeder v …
After a verdict in favor of the attorney, ending in dismissal, the Appellate Division, First Department affirmed. The claimed departure was the failure to call a certain medical expert. The jury disagreed with Plaintiff and found for defendant in Warren v Silas 2021 NY Slip Op 03930
Decided on June 17, 2021 Appellate Division, First…
Judiciary Law § 487 is ancient, strict and sparse. It rarely succeeds and in Kaufman v Moritt Hock & Hamroff, LLP 2021 NY Slip Op 01969 [192 AD3d 1092] March 31, 2021 Appellate Division, Second Department is denied outright.
“Relief pursuant to Judiciary Law § 487 “is not lightly given” (Chowaiki & Co. Fine …
