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.
Golub v Shalik, Morris & Co., LLP 2018 NY Slip Op 32358(U) September 21, 2018 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 158055/2017 Judge: Barbara Jaffe presents a difficult analysis of the statute of limitations. When it commences and whether continuing representation tolls the statute are the cornerstones of this opinion.
“On August 16, 2012,…
Jonns v Fischbarg 2018 NY Slip Op 32353(U) September 18, 2018 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 150729/2017 Judge: Kathryn E. Freed which we discussed yesterday for its lesson on the statute of limitations is also worthwhile to read for how litigation costs can be part of legal malpractice damages. In short, those damages…
It only comes up once in a while, but Jonns v Fischbarg 2018 NY Slip Op 32353(U) September 18, 2018 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 150729/2017 Judge: Kathryn E. Freed applies an alternative “commencement” of the statute of limitations found in McCoy v. Feinman, 99 NY2d 295,301(2002). In McCoy the Court…
Surely the longest running Judiciary Law§ 487 case known to man, Melcher v Greenberg Traurig LLP 2018 NY Slip Op 06310 Decided on September 27, 2018 Appellate Division, First Department has been modified and sent back to Supreme Court for trial. Previously it had been severely clipped and stripped of most of the damage claims…
Plaintiffs often allege “professional negligence” in claims against brokers, insurance agents, financial planners, architects and others. The question of who can be sued for “professional negligence” is not decided merely by an allegation. Judd v Madison Advisory Servs., Inc.
2018 NY Slip Op 32298(U) September 6, 2018 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 152895/2017 …
It has been our observation that in legal malpractice cases Courts tend to dismiss more than in other settings, and that the probable reason for this higher-than-expected rate of dismissals is that Courts tend to favor attorneys over clients in a legal malpractice setting. Chu v Legere 2018 NY Slip Op 32269(U) September 14, 2018 …
Plaintiff was involved in several problematical joint real estate deals, each of which disappointed him as a participant. Was the law firm negligent in the transactions and was plaintiff damaged thereby? In Hobbick v Zegans 2018 NY Slip Op 32180(U) September 5, 2018 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 159172/2017 Judge: Barbara Jaffe the…
Kaplan v Conway & Conway September 4, 2018 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 158060/17 Judge: Frank P. Nervo runs into a familiar problem in legal malpractice settings. Clients were the subject of an internal investigation at their brokerage and hired the attorneys. Their claim is that the response to the investigation by the…
Did the attorneys represent the clients or not? This is the central question in First Choice Plumbing Corp. v Miller Law Offs., PLLC 2018 NY Slip Op 05825 Decided on August 22, 2018 Appellate Division, Second Department. The answer is not yet known. What the AD did reaffirm is that only certain kind of “documents”…
Yesterday we discussed the legal malpractice aspect of Billiard Balls Mgt. LLC v Mintzer Sarowitz Zeris Ledva & Meyers, LLP 2018 NY Slip Op 32019(U) August 17, 2018
Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 153477/2016 Judge: Carol R. Edmead. It was dismissed, mostly on the basis of lack of privity, backed up by lack…
