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.
As we have said before, New York real estate is strongly associated with New York legal malpractice claims. Ramos v Goldberg, Schudieri & Lindenberg, P.C. 2020 NY Slip Op 07147 Decided on December 01, 2020
Appellate Division, First Department is another example. Here, the question was whether Plaintiff owned a coop or not.
“In the…
It is sadly ironic when a legal malpractice case is dismissed (from plaintiff’s point of view) and even more so when it is dismissed for “willful and contumacious”discovery conduct (from everyone’s point of view).
Allstar Elecs., Inc. v DeLuca 2020 NY Slip Op 07018 [188 AD3d 1121]
November 25, 2020 Appellate Division, Second Department is…
A line of legal malpractice cases in New York, arising primarilly out of matrimonial underlying matters have found that if the client positively answers an allocution question of whether the client is satisfied with the attorneys’work, then a later legal malpractice case is forfeit. Here in Stennett v Goldberg & Cohn, LLP 2020 NY…
Martin Assoc., Inc. v Illinois Natl. Ins. Co. 2020 NY Slip Op 06860 [188 AD3d 572] November 19, 2020 Appellate Division, First Department is an excellent example of how the “but for” principle is applied. In this case, the claim was that defendant attorneys failed to notify the excess carrier, and thus, coverage was lost.…
Schlam Stone & Dolan LLP v Toussie 2020 NY Slip Op 06874 Decided on November 19, 2020 Appellate Division, First Department is an example of how the account stated doctrine works for attorneys.
“Plaintiff was entitled to summary judgment on its account stated claim, as it submitted documentary evidence showing that defendant Robert I. Toussie…
Flintlock Constr. Servs., LLC v Rubin, Fiorella & Friedman, LLP 2020 NY Slip Op 06711 Decided on November 17, 2020 Appellate Division, First Department seems to be a case that could have been won, it it had been brought in 2016 rather than in 2018.
“Plaintiff, a general contractor, entered into a construction agreement with…
Jewell Law, PLLC v Ruci 2020 NY Slip Op 33648(U) November 3, 2020
Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 655702/2019
Judge: Arthur F. Engoron displays some unique inductive reasoning, and some conventional legal reasoning. Breach of Fiducary duty is dismissed in an unconventional matter. Legal malpractice is more conventionally decided.
“This Court finds that…
Hudson Yards LLC v Segal 2020 NY Slip Op 06353 Decided on November 05, 2020 Appellate Division, First Department is another case in which the brutal “but for” causation rule in legal malpractice ends a case.
“To recover damages for legal malpractice, the plaintiff must establish that the attorney (1) “failed to exercise that degree…
Olsen v Smith 2020 NY Slip Op 06214 [187 AD3d 675] October 29, 2020
Appellate Division, First Department is a familiar trope. Supreme Court and the Appellate Division look over a pro-se complaint and find it wanting.
“In this action for legal malpractice, plaintiff alleges that defendants’ mishandling of her defense in a Family Court…
In this case, the claim was that the attorney should have inquired about insurance that Plaintiff had, rather than taking the case and charging the client for representation that the insurance company would have provided.
The jury found otherwise. in Cohen v Sive, Paget & Riesel, P.C., 2020 NY Slip Op 06050 [187 AD3d 634]…
