Is the client satisfied with the settlement is different from whether the client is “satisfied with the representation” which, in the past few years has taken on a totemic power to kill legal malpractice cases. Clients, when/if asked at the settlement allocution whether they are satisfied with their attorney’s representation and required to answer. If
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.
Not Legal Malpractice But Not Dismissed Either
An-Jung v Rower LLC 2019 NY Slip Op 30600(U) March 6, 2019 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 152694/2018 Judge: Francis A. Kahn III is a thoughtful discussion of the difference between legal malpractice and an overbiling case. Here, in a matrimonial setting, plaintiff’s case is that the bills lack any discernible detail and…
The Attorney Client Privilege in a Litigation Setting
The attorney client privilege is sacrosanct, no? Well, not really. Heth v Satterlee Stephens Burke & Burke LLP 2019 NY Slip Op 30555(U) March 5, 2019 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 650379/2015 Judge: Andrew Borrok demonstrates what happens when the client possibly discusses how attorney 1 is handling the case with attorney 2.…
Attorney Disqualification in a Legal Malpractice Setting
Akin to a pro-se situation, when law firms defend themselves in a legal malpractice setting they run the risk of attorney disqualification on the attorney-witness rule.
Quadrozzi v Castro 2019 NY Slip Op 30550(U) March 5, 2019 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 151675/2018 Judge: Frank P. Nervo is a good example.
“Plaintiffs seek…
A Multi-Million Dollar Legal Fee Lurking in the Background
Big projects require lots of legal work. In Whiteman Osterman & Hanna, LLP v Preserve Assoc., LLC 2019 NY Slip Op 29056 Decided on February 28, 2019 Supreme Court, Albany County Platkin, J. we see the unusual situation in which a law firm waits 13 years or so to collect a huge legal fee, and…
Experts Sued In Inexpert Fashion
The experts were hired, and now plaintiff (whose attorney hired them) says that they were inexpert. Marks Paneth LLP v Economic Alchemy LLC 2019 NY Slip Op 30532(U) February 26, 2019 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 60427/2017 Judge: Lucy Billings is determined on sufficiency of pleading grounds. The fraud claim fails.
“Plaintiff Marks…
Damages or Speculation?
Departure is the first question in legal malpractice; it is the one that almost everyone gets right. What is often shocking to the client is that judges (and then juries) scrutinize the remaining three elements (proximate cause, “but for” causation and ascertainable damages) in reaching a decision.
Lisi v Lowenstein Sandler LLP 2019 NY Slip…
How Many Elements Does Judiciary Law 487 Have?
There is great dispute over the elements of Judiciary Law § 487. Is it attempted deceit or successful deceit? Does it require egregious conduct, or chronic conduct or chronic and extreme conduct or a pattern of delinquency?
Schwartzman v Pliskin, Rubano, Baum & Vitulli 2019 NY Slip Op 30419(U) January 14, 2019 Supreme Court, Queens…
Interstate Litigation and Legal Malpractice
Candero v Del Virginia 2019 NY Slip Op 30436(U) February 26, 2019 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 151983/2018 Judge: Barbara Jaffe discusses the various relationships and potential legal malpractice in a case which traveled from New York to Florida, and in which the lawfirms kept changing shape.
“Relying on the advice of third-party…
“Possibly Unethical” but No Legal Malpractice
“While defendants’ representation of plaintiff was not perfect, and was possibly unethical
(see 22 NYCRR § 1200 [Rule 1.7]), their concurrent representation of three parties with differing
interests does not, in and of itself, state a claim for either cause of action.” So writes Justice Jaffe in Picarella v Liddle & Robinson L.L.P. 2019 NY…