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.
Spoliation of evidence is a certain basis for dismissal. Negligently, or even worse, intentionally allowing key evidence to be lost or destroyed deprives the opponent of discoverable exculpatory evidence. Such loss is rarely countenanced.
Manno v Hayes Law Practice, PLLC 2020 NY Slip Op 31228(U) May 6, 2020 Supreme Court, Kings County Docket Number: Index…
it is neither novel, nor a surprise that legal malpractice might come up in a complicated trust/estate/real estate/debtor-creditor case. Here, a valuable building in the meatpacking district of New York City was at issue. Romanoff v Trustees of the Sheryl Romanoff Irrevocable Grantor Trust. 2020 NY Slip Op 31150(U) May 4, 2020 Supreme Court, New…
In a recurring theme, the “but for” element of legal malpractice is the place where battles are lost. Rag & Bone Holdings LLC v Hand Baldachin & Assoc. LLP 2020 NY Slip Op 31149(U) May 2, 2020 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 156994/2019 Judge: Andrea Masley is a fine example. The…
Matrimonial legal malpractice cases are difficult for plaintiff. Generally they end in a settlement and courts have held that mere settlement (even if effectively compelled by mistakes of counsel) will not permit a legal malpractice case to be brought. Other courts have held that the allocution which generally accompanies an in-court settlement serves to immunize…
The formulaic decision in Kahlon v DeSantis 2020 NY Slip Op 02464 Decided on April 29, 2020 Appellate Division, Second Department comes with a recitation of the standard of a CPLR 3211(a)(7) motion, and a theoretical discussion of the requirement of “but for” causation. There is no guidance to the bar in how the alleged…
Real Estate in Manhattan, whether in a pandemic or not, remains a very significant economic force. Real estate transactions remain a very significant portion of the legal malpractice world in NYC. Here, a multi-million dollar co-op purchase went sour over the next door building’s right to add several floors and a penthouse. The addition would…
Amtrust N. Am., Inc. v Pavloff 2020 NY Slip Op 31005(U) April 23, 2020 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 156855/2019 Judge: Andrew Borrok is a wonderful recapitulation of how “but for” causation, proximate cause, allegations of damage in a pre-answer motion to dismiss should be handled. All too often, judges require…
With a serious injury, and with the best of intentions, Plaintiff hires a well regarded law firm to obtain compensation. The law firm sues an incorrect governmental entity, in this case the City of New York rather than the U.S. Is this legal malpractice? To answer this question we revert to the four elements of…
A frequently repeated principle of legal malpractice is that the “but for” portion of the case is really where all arguments center. Few legal malpractice cases are brought where a departure by the attorney is not glaring. The more perplexing question is what would have happened if the attorney had not made a mistake. in…
There are four elements to legal malpractice. In shorthand, they are departure, proximity, “but for” causation and ascertainable damages. Karambelas v Cohen Goldstein, LLP 2020 NY Slip Op 30994(U) April 2, 2020 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 15163 demonstrates how the Court will examine the underlying case (sometimes to an extreme…
