Deutsche Bank Natl. Trust Co. v Lopresti 2025 NY Slip Op 51235(U) Decided on July 28, 2025 Supreme Court, Rockland County Fried, J. is a case where history has caught up with the current law. Foreclosures in the past were more mechanistic than today, and after a raft of scandalous “auto-signing” and other foreclosure problems
Andrew Lavoott Bluestone
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.
Is Anti-Slapp the New Legal Malpractice Frontier?
We will be the first to admit surprise at the application of Anti-Slapp principles to legal malpractice cases. Nevertheless, references have started to creep into court’s decisions. Avanza Group, LLC v Golenbock Eiseman Assor Bell & Peskoe LLP 2025 NY Slip Op 32125(U) June 13, 2025 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No.
A Put, Ten Million Dollars and a Malpractice Action
DKSJ, LLC v Cohen 2025 NY Slip Op 32574(U) July 14, 2025 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 653100/2024 Judge: Margaret A. Chan is part of a larger group of cases including a legal malpractice case. The legal malpractice case, not entirely fleshed out here, appears to be a question of whether…
An Otherwise Good Legal Malpractice Case Dismissed For Discovery Problems
It is of course ironic when a legal malpractice case is dismissed for failure to engage in discovery. This appears to be the holding in Manno v Hayes Law Practice, PLLC 2025 NY Slip Op 04167 Decided on July 16, 2025
Appellate Division, Second Department.
“The plaintiffs commenced this action, inter alia, to recover damages…
What Evidence Supports a Legal Malpractice Claim After Settlement of the Underlying Case?
Ginsburg & Misk LLP v Eshaghpour 2025 NY Slip Op 32419(U) July 9, 2025 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 161655/2024 Judge: Mary V. Rosado discusses what showing is necessary to demonstrate that settlement of the underlying case was “effectively compelled” by mistakes of counsel.
“From 2019 until July 2024, Plaintiff represented…
Losing Summary Judgment by Veering From the Narrative
Medley Mgt., IncLowenstein Sandler, LLP 2025 NY Slip Op 32436(U) July 6, 2025 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 651987/2022 Judge: Joel M. Cohen is a thoughtfully written grant of summary judgment in a legal malpractice case. Here is the intro:
“At a high level, this case involves a financially troubled client…
Failure to Advise Client of Legal Malpractice Potential Claim
In Matter of Blyer 2025 NY Slip Op 04005 Decided on July 2, 2025 Appellate Division, Second Department
Per Curiam., the attorney did a lot of things commented on by the Appellate Division and the Referee. Amongst them was the failure to advise the client of a potential malpractice claim.
“The amended petition contains seven…
Can a Judiciary Law 487 Claim Lie For Acts in Federal Court?
Claude Mayo Constr. Co., Inc. v Barclay Damon LLP 2025 NY Slip Op 03897 Decided on June 27, 2025
Appellate Division, Fourth Department chooses to duck this question. Since JL 487 is a NY statute, and requires that deceit take place during a pending litigation, the question of whether litigation in Federal Court meets the…
The Statute of Limitations Is Approaching…What to Do?
130 E. 18 Owners Corp. v Axelrod 2025 NY Slip Op 32210(U) June 23, 2025 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 158632/2024 illustrates the common problem of what to do when the statute of limitations for legal malpractice is approaching yet the underlying case (where the malpractice took place) is not yet…
Buyer’s Remorse or Unauthorized Settlement of A Case?
We get little direct description of the legal malpractice claim, but a guess from the decision is that Plaintiff argued that she did not get the settlement bargain that she expected, and that the attorney committed legal malpractice. The decision in Christian v Paul B. Weitz & Assoc., P.C. 2025 NY Slip Op 51001(U) Decided…