Utilisave, LLC v Fox Horan & Camerini, LLP 2018 NY Slip Op 33284(U) December 18, 2018 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 652318/2014 Judge: Kathryn E. Freed is a complicated case involving rotating ownership of a party in litigation, purchases from the liquidating trustee and 10 lawsuits in multiple states. Judge Freed eventually rules
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.
A Doctor Unable to Control Himself; A Patient Injured
Legal malpractice is but a child of professional negligence, and medical malpractice is a sibling. In “Jane Doe” v Sharma 2018 NY Slip Op 28386 Decided on December 1, 2018 Supreme Court, Nassau County Judge Brown navigates a very unusual medical malpractice case which has several shocking details.
“In this highly unusual case, the plaintiff…
A Fraud, A Fleecing, Legal Malpractice?
Tatintsian v Pryor Cashman LLP 2018 NY Slip Op 33152(U) December 10, 2018 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 152022/2017 is extremely complicated, but Judge David Benjamin Cohen unravels the facts and teases out a legal malpractice analysis.
“In this action, plaintiff Gary Tatintsian (Plaintiff) alleges that defendants Pryor Cashman LLP (Pryor Cashman), Eric…
Win in the Supreme Court, Lose in the Appellate Division
A fair number of summary judgment decisions rendered in Supreme Court are reversed in the Appellate Division. Rather than simply ask how two courts can view the same evidence in such a differing light, note the deep doctrinal differences between that which Supreme Court credited and that which the Appellate Division relied upon in 762 …
Litigating In The Press Can Be Dangerous
Sometimes lawyers believe that they can affect the climate of litigation by getting a little press attention. This may work on occasion, but can wreck a case as well. Barr v Liddle & Robertson, L.L.P. 2018 NY Slip Op 33113(U) December 3, 2018 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 159781/14 Judge: Manuel J. Mendez…
No Service, No Case
DeMartino v Harris 2018 NY Slip Op 08278 Decided on December 5, 2018 Appellate Division, Second Department stands for the proposition that if a case is flawed in its service, it remains flawed throughout. Here, service was demonstrably no good. Nothing further good could save the case.
“The plaintiffs commenced this action against the defendant,…
Legal Malpractice in a Real Estate Development Setting
Whether there has been legal malpractice in a real estate development setting, or no malpractice at all depends on at least four elements. The least interesting of these elements is the departure. In almost every legal malpractice case there is a definite departure. It’s the “proximate cause” and the “but for” portions of the equation…
A Huge Real Estate Project Gone Wrong…But No Legal Malpractice
Real Estate rules Manhattan, and big (really big) money is attracted to the thought of new buildings in prime locations. Bauhouse Group I, Inc. v Kalikow 2018 NY Slip Op 33055(U)
December 4, 2018 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 158277/2017
Judge: Saliann Scarpulla is the story of a Sutton Place project which started,…
A Massive Tax Loss, But So Long Ago
Boesky v Levine 2018 NY Slip Op 33017(U) November 27, 2018 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 650756/2017 Judge: Eileen Bransten is a story containing the only certainties in life: massive taxes and death, along with a tricky tax scheme, bankruptcies, indictments, millions of dollars in losses and 15 years of litigation. This case…
Collateral Estoppel and a Limited Retainer Rule Out Legal Malpractice Case
Pritisker v Zamansky, LLC 2018 NY Slip Op 32930(U) November 19, 2018
Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 150595/2017 Judge: Frank P. Nervo is the kind of legal malpractice case that legal malpractice insurers love. It appears to be a one-off, or a pro-se case in which a checklist of the elements of legal…