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 one starts to read the decision in Follman v Gruber 2025 NY Slip Op 32078(U) June 6, 2025 Supreme Court, Kings County Docket Number: Index No. 508865/2023 Judge: Richard Velasquez one gets the impression that the defendant attorneys have the upper hand. Read on.
“Upon the foregoing papers, in this action by plaintiff Abron…
Robbins v O’Hara 2025 NY Slip Op 32005(U) June 5, 2025 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 152842/2022 Judge: David B. Cohen presents the attorney judgment defense in a setting where the Court finds that there is no unsettled or misunderstood law.
“In his complaint, plaintiff alleges that he retained defendants in…
North Flats LLC v Belkin Burden Goldman, LLP 2025 NY Slip Op 32003(U) June 4, 2025 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No.150420/2022 Judge: Richard G. Latin is the courtroom equivalent of a Broadway revival where the script was written by the AD and played out on a Supreme Court stage.
“Plaintiff, The…
Bernstein v Jacobson 2025 NY Slip Op 03173 Decided on May 28, 2025 Appellate Division, Second Department is the story of an attorney-client relationship gone bad. But…had it ended?
“In an action to recover damages for legal malpractice, the defendant appeals from an order of the Supreme Court, Queens County (Karina E. Alomar, J.), dated…
How to calculate when continuing representation ends is a continuing problem. Does the representation continue until new counsel come into the case? Does it continue until a consent to change attorney is filed? In Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. v Leopold & Assoc., PLLC 2025 NY Slip Op 03220 Decided on May 28, 2025 Appellate Division…
Rhttps://www.nycourts.gov/reporter/3dseries/2025/2025_50862.htmotonde v Stewart Title Ins. Co. 2025 NY Slip Op 50862(U) Decided on May 23, 2025 Supreme Court, Westchester County Jamieson, is plaintiffs new try at litigating claims over transfer of the Mamaroneck Beach Realty Group. It fails for a number of reasons.
“In this case, the verified complaint contains five causes of…
Rules concerning legal malpractice litigation are unique, difficult and adhered to. Rules about appellate records are even more specific and adhered to. In Lubin v Arnold E. DiJoseph, P.C. 2025 NY Slip Op 03057 Decided on May 21, 2025 the Appellate Division, Second Department dismissed a pro-se appeal from a pro-se litigation of a legal…
Legal malpractice has the unique “but for” proximate cause elements not found in other tort claim analyses, and it frequently is the reason why cases are dismissed at a higher rate (on CPLR 3211 motions) than is seen in other professional negligence claims. Med mal claims, as an example, are rarely dismissed pre-answer.
“The plaintiff…
On its face, Allen v Thompson 2025 NY Slip Op 31783(U) May 15, 2025 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 160342/2020 Judge: Sabrina Kraus would seem to be a situation where a general practitioner takes on a complex employment discrimination case and then changes a word in the settlement papers in (what…
Gordon v Martel 2025 NY Slip Op 02993 Decided on May 15, 2025 Appellate Division, First Department illustrates what happens when clients hire/fire attorneys, or attorneys successfully withdraw from cases. Where a mistake is made by attorney 1, and successor counsel attorney 2 has time to fix the mistake, attorney 1 will be immunized.
“This…
