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.
Real estate is a major contributor to the legal malpractice oeuvre. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. v Pickett 2020 NY Slip Op 05795 [187 AD3d 965] October 14, 2020 Appellate Division, Second Department is an interesting example of a conflict of interest and the AD’s suggestion that a legal malpractice case might be appropriate.
“The defendant…
Kivo v Louis F. Burke, P.C. 2020 NY Slip Op 05680 [187 AD3d 503]
October 13, 2020 Appellate Division, First Department reminds us that an expert is (almost) always needed. Here, the absence of an expert was fatal to the motion defense.
“In this legal malpractice action, defendants, through their expert’s affidavit, established prima facie…
Attorney fee claims = Client malpractice claims. This particular phrase could be chiseled into law school lintels. Kovkov v Law Firm of Dayrel Sewell, PLLC 2020 NY Slip Op 05682 [187 AD3d 505] October 13, 2020
Appellate Division, First Department is a prime example. Law firm was not paid after getting an initial $7500. The…
The Statute of limitations is an embodiment of a social policy which, in essence keeps the world turning. Old, stale claims have an expiration date, and little opportunity exists to keep them alive. Even continuous representation, in the legal malpractice setting, has significant limits. Mehra v Morrison Cohen LLP 2020 NY Slip Op 33234(U) October…
As we have noted many times, real estate issues prompt a great number of legal malpractice cases. There is both real money and real complicated litigative issues in big NY real estate and it often ends in legal malpractice disputes. Genesis REOC Co., LLC v Poppel 2020 NY Slip Op 33230(U) October 1, 2020 Supreme…
A shocking practice in an otherwise virtuous area of law has recently bobbed up to the surface. Lee v Leeds, Morelli & Brown, P.C. 2020 NY Slip Op 33374(U) September 30, 2020 Supreme Court, Kings County Docket Number: 8651/05 Judge: Ingrid Joseph is the latest case in which the Leeds Morelli paradigm of “anti-discrimination” litigation…
Attorneys took on a jail beating case only to find that the most major injury, amputation of a testicle, was undertaken due to an incidental diagnosis of cancer, not due to trauma from the beating. So, can they just quit? Court says no.
Scott v Leventhal 2020 NY Slip Op 33276(U) September 30, 2020 Supreme…
Strategic choices in medicine and law have always been given great deference by the Courts. “Medicine is an art, not a science” is often heard in Med Mal trials. Strategic choices by attorneys may cover a vast area of their acts at trial, in hearings and elsewhere. Wormser, Kiely, Galef & Jacobs LLP v Frumkin …
A classic example of a case which probably could not be won. It was lost because of discovery deficiencies by the attorney. Woman goes to wax salon, has wax applied to her eyebrows. Eventually she is diagnosed with herpes and HPV. Salon used and re-used same sticks, and had a pot of wax which was…
Clients often intuit the departure from good practice in their cases. Referring attorneys generally pinpoint the mistake. Few consider how and whether they can prove that “but for “the mistake or departure, there would have been a better result. Katsoris v Bodnar & Milone, LLP
2020 NY Slip Op 05040 Decided on September 23, 2020…
