By offering a full range of legal services, we can efficiently handle not only our clients’ routine legal needs, but also their more complex transactional and litigation matters. When needed, our attorneys will “team up” to handle a client’s legal issues, combining the skills and experience from their specific practice area to reach a satisfying conclusion.
Often, clients are so impressed by the results and high level of service that they hire us for additional legal issues and recommend us to friends, family members, and colleagues. We receive most of our business through referrals and have maintained some clients for multiple generations.
Our primary practice areas include:
Real Estate Transactional Law & Litigation
Trusts & Estates Law & Litigation
Elder Law
Guardianships
Business & Corporate Law & Litigation
Banking
Expert Witness
We have carved out a niche in real estate and estate litigation, combining the meticulous attention to detail required for contracts and agreements with the negotiating savvy of our seasoned court litigators.
In addition, our partners have been appointed by the courts in a variety of positions including referees, receivers, attorneys for incapacitated persons, court evaluators in guardianship cases, and guardians ad litem in Surrogate’s Court matters.
Attorney Referrals
With our scholarly understanding of the law and vast experience in countless transactional and litigation issues, we frequently receive referral clients from other attorneys.
Referring attorneys are confident of our legal abilities, believe in our ethical standards in all referred matters, and trust that we will keep them apprised of all proceedings.
Real Estate Transactional Law & Litigation
Our attorneys have years of both scholarly and transactional experience in all aspects of residential and commercial real estate, and have a stellar reputation for providing knowledgeable advice on financing, contract negotiations, lease reviews, title objection resolution, and the coordination of closing requirements.
Our firm handles litigation for both residential and commercial property mortgage foreclosures, as well as partition actions, ancient mortgage proceedings, adverse possession, and other property disputes. The firm also represents major financial institutions in foreclosures for commercial property, from inception through to public auctions and the property’s subsequent sale.
We helped a client recover over $790,000 after the client had been induced to release a portion of a mortgaged property lien.
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Our Real Estate Services include:
Commercial Real Estate
Construction Contracts
Expert Witness
Land Use
Leases
Litigation
Mechanics Liens
Mechanics Lien Foreclosures
Mortgage Foreclosures
Residential Real Estate
Riparian Rights & Riparian Law
Title Law & Litigation
Title Work
1031 Tax Free Exchanges
Tax Lien Foreclosures
Trusts & Estates — Planning, Administration & Litigation
Our trust and estate attorneys understand that every will or trust, no matter the size of the estate, should be crafted to effectively fulfill the client’s wishes. They know the value of advance planning and prepare Powers of Attorney and Health Care Proxies as part of every estate plan. Post-death tax planning is also an important part of our work.
Our attorneys have helped clients save hundreds of thousands of dollars in estate taxes. They have assisted clients with closely-held businesses to create gift giving plans that let the older generation preserve control during lifetime, while securing valuable discounts to reduce the taxable estate of the creator of the business. In addition, our attorneys have successfully litigated countless probate and accounting disputes.
Our firm is known for paying a meticulous attention to detail in administering clients’ estates, whether the decedent died with or without a will. Our attorneys use their interpersonal skills to preserve and strengthen family ties that are often strained by the death of a family member.
We helped a client obtain justice in court by adding an amendment to his deceased father’s death certificate to move the probate contest back to the father’s county of residence.
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Our Trusts & Estates services include:
Estate and Gift Tax Planning
Estate Litigation
Gift Giving
Health Care Proxy
Pet Trusts
Powers of Attorney
Trusts
Will Drafting
Elder Law
We are finely attuned to the legal needs of our elderly clients, and take into consideration the physical and mental challenges that can accompany aging. Our elder law attorneys consider issues such as retirement income, asset protection, long-term care, housing, insurance, and lifestyle preferences when giving advice on ways to plan now for the future.
Our Elder Law services include:
Asset Protection
Life Care Agreements
Medicaid
Guardianships
A Guardianship Proceeding is often the only way to protect and to finalize decisions on important matters for those who are incapacitated due to age, a physical or mental disability, or a temporary condition such as injury, illness or addiction. Our attorneys have successfully represented petitioners in a wide range of Guardianship Proceedings, including Special Needs Trusts, where physically and/or mentally disabled individuals can enjoy the use of property held in trust while still receiving essential needs-based government benefits.
Our Guardianship services include:
Incapacity
Special Needs Trusts
We helped a client gain an advantage in court by adding an amendment to his deceased father’s death certificate to move the probate contest back to the father’s county of residence.
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Business & Corporate Law & Litigation
This practice area covers a wide range of legal issues including the formation, sale and purchase of a business, as well as owner disputes and litigation. We provide general commercial litigation services and have successfully prosecuted for and defended clients in cases involving disputes between businesses and those among its principals, as well as commercial paper, secured transactions, and banking litigation.
In addition, our firm is experienced in hospital law and has negotiated leases, real estate acquisitions, computer contracts, building construction contracts, medical equipment leases, and employment agreements for a major medical center. The firm has been involved in consent issues and termination of life support issues, negotiates provider contracts between physicians and hospitals, and conducts mental hygiene law proceedings on the retention and transfer of clients to long-term care facilities.
Our Business & Corporate Law services include:
Business Formation, Acquisition & Sales
Business Owner Disputes & Litigation
Buy/Sell Agreements
Collection of $100,000 or more
Commercial Litigation
Dissolution Disputes
Employment Contracts
Hospital Law
LLC Operating Agreements
Partnership Agreements
Stockholder Agreements
Banking
Our law firm has extensive experience in state and federal banking law issues in the areas of lending, deposits, operations, compliance, and regulatory matters. In the lending area, we advise clients on a variety of issues including the proper structuring of commercial transactions, letters of credit transactions, and issues regarding the creation and perfection of security interests. We also address the extensive lending laws and regulations such as the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (Reg. X), the Truth in Lending Act (Reg. Z), and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (Reg. B).
On the deposit and operations side, we advise clients on issues involving negotiable instruments and the bank collection process, forgeries, and other issues pertaining to Articles 3 and 4 of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC). We advise banking clients on issues regarding deceased or incompetent depositors and adverse claims, as well as compliance with executions, levies, and subpoenas served on financial institutions. We also routinely advise our bank clients on general corporate issues that arise in the financial world.
We successfully defended a co-op lender against damages for alleged violations in a truth-in-lending case.
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Our Banking services include:
CEMA Transactions
Letters of Credit
Loan Closings
Swaps
Working Capital Lines of Credit, Revolving Credit & Term Loan Financing
Expert Witness
Our partners have been retained as expert witnesses on numerous occasions, particularly for defending real estate attorneys against claims of lawyer malpractice. We have earned a stellar reputation as “a lawyer’s lawyer,” based on our in-depth knowledge of title, insurance law, our litigation and foreclosure experience, and our real-world experience in real estate and mortgage closings. Many so-called experts who testify in these fields may be familiar with or even teach law, but have not actually handled legal transactions, as we have.
Partner John G. Hall has testified as an expert witness in real estate litigation concerning title and closing issues including RESPA, Truth in Lending, ECOA, and secondary market transactions. Partner Thomas J. Hall has been retained as an expert witness in a number of legal malpractice cases involving real estate transactions and foreclosure proceedings. Partner Lainie R. Fastman has been retained as an expert in will construction, based on her vast experience and reputation for excellence with estate planning, trusts and wills.