Palisades Lawyers

Manuel Portela Manuel@portelalaw.com Law School: The Washington College of Law at American University, Degree: JD 1990 Undergraduate School: Fordham University, 1986 Foreign Language: Spanish Manuel Portela Esq. is the founding partner of The Portela Law Firm, P.C. He specializes in Criminal Defense, Immigration, Family Law and Personal Injury. After graduating from Fordham University and American University Washington College of Law, Mr. Portela accepted an appointment as an Assistant District Attorney at the Kings County District Attorney‘s Office in New York. During his tenure as an Assistant District Attorney, he received extensive training and instruction in the Criminal Court...

Practice Areas: Foreclosure Defense, Loan Modifications and Short Sales, Residential Real Estate Transactions, Surrogate’s Court, Probate, Wills, Commercial Litigation, Corporate and Business Law

Admitted: 1997, New York and U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York

Law School: New York Law School, J.D. ; Member- Law Review;
Recipient of New York Law School Academic Achievement Award and Teaching Fellowship; Top 1% of class of 1996.

Biography: Former senior associate, litigation and corporate departments of a large international law firm with offices in Manhattan, London, Los Angeles, Bucharest, Washington D.C., Baltimore and Connecticut.

Joseph G. Macaluso is a graduate of Brooklyn Law School. He has been in the private practice of law in the fields of personal injury and medical malpractice since 1990. Upon graduation from Law School, he was recognized as Best Trial Advocate of his graduating class. He was also recognized as an Overall Best Trial Advocate of a National Trial Advocacy competition. Since then, Macaluso has practiced as an injury lawyer who has successfully litigated many cases. He has handled a wide variety of injury and medical malpractice over the years. The cases...

Peter A. Hurwitz began his legal career working with his father, Martin Hurwitz, and became a partner in the Law Firm of Hurwitz and Hurwitz P.C. His father, Martin Hurwitz, established the law firm in 1955. The firm brought decades of experience with a strong commitment of expertise, competence, and the finest legal representation to its clients. Martin Hurwitz practiced law in Rockland County with both a respected and exceptional reputation by his colleagues, clients and courts. Upon retirement, the legacy of his law practice continues today with the Law Office of Peter A. Hurwitz. Peter A. Hurwitz has...

Nikki attended Mississippi University for Women, and obtained her B.A. in Political Science in 2013. She also attended Missouri University of Science & Technology where she obtained her B.A., summa cum laude, in History in 2015.

Nikki received her J.D., magna cum laude, in 2018 from the University of Mississippi School of Law with a concentration in Entertainment & Sports Law. Nikki served as a member of the Mississippi Law Journal, Federal Courts Law Review, and Mississippi Sports Law Review. Nikki was selected as a member of the Phi Delta Phi Honor Society and served as the President of the...

Attorney.

Ronald E. Stiskin is passionate about assisting families and individuals in transition. Whether securing educational services for children with special needs; planning for the future of disabled adults; or helping seniors and their families identify their next steps, Ronald is committed to guiding his clients to their best outcome. Ronald has taken training from the American Bar Association in Advance Directives and Estate Planning for LGBT Adults. He has also been trained in Elder Law mediation. Ronald E. Stiskin graduated from Harvard University in 1986 (B.A. with honors in Sanskrit and Indian Studies) and from Dalhousie Law School, Nova Scotia, Canada in...

Emily Ingall is an attorney in Offit Kurman’s Family Law Practice Group. She represents clients in cases involving divorce, child custody and visitation, child support, alimony, property distribution, prenuptial and postnuptial agreements, adoption, and domestic custody disputes. She has focused her practice on all matrimonial matters, providing her services to clients in New Jersey, New York, and Maryland. Ms. Ingall received her Juris Doctorate from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in 2020 with a concentration in Family Law. While obtaining her J.D., Emily interned at the Benjamin N. Cardozo Divorce Mediation Clinic. She served as a Research Assistant for Matrimonial...

Edgar M. Rivera is an aggressive and zealous advocate for employees who have been subjected to harassment, discrimination, retaliation, and wage-and-hour violations. Edgar has represented hundreds of employees in individual, multi-plaintiff, collective- and class action litigation before state and federal courts in New York, New Jersey and Florida.

Howard B. Leopold is Brooklyn born and a member of the New Jersey, New York, and Bergen County Bar Associations. He graduated from the State University of New York at Albany in 1987 (Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude) with a B.A. in U.S. History and Minors in Hebrew and Business. Mr. Leopold went on to attend Albany Law School and earned a J.D. in 1990. After graduating, he worked as an associate in the litigation department of a New York City law firm for numerous years and then spent four years at a law firm in Rochelle Park,...

Bill Sipser has been a leading practitioner in the area of Labor Law and Employment Law Discrimination for almost thirty years. His practice is focused on representing clients in age discrimination, race discrimination, disability discrimination, and other matters involving employee rights. Bill has extensive litigation experience in state and federal courts, and before several governmental agencies involving representation of individuals and labor unions. Bill has prosecuted significant cases, including appeals before the Appellate Division of the State of New York as well as the federal Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He argued a critical employment discrimination issue before the...

I am a former engineer and programmer turned lawyer helping clients in all aspects of intellectual property, technology & business law. Over the past 13 years I have represented and counseled clients in numerous patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret matters, including litigation, licensing, protecting technologies through patents, trademarks, copyrights and other methods, assessing risks for new product launches, assessing the strengths of IP portfolios, devising licensing strategies, helping with mergers and acquisitions, and many other.

Elsa Ayoub, Esq. has extensive experience representing multinational corporations and individuals with respect to the best short and long-term visa strategies for their specific needs in a wide range of industries, including media, financial services, advertising, education, entertainment, banking, consumer products, health care services and health care management services. She represents corporate clients and their foreign national employees in all phases of the immigration process, as well as in the transfer of their foreign national executives, managers, and key employees to the United States. Elsa also counsels individuals who have demonstrated extraordinary ability in their field of endeavor and who...

Mr. Robbins is a partner in the New York City law firm of Kaufmann Gildin & Robbins LLP and specializes in commercial arbitration and mediation. He represents investors, brokers and firms in disputes and brokers and firms before regulatory agencies. He is also an expert witness in malpractice cases arising out of securities arbitrations. He and his firm have been responsible for the return of tens of millions of dollars to investors and have represented many brokers accused of wrongdoing in arbitrations and regulatory matters. Mr. Robbins served as Special Deputy Attorney General...

To Jonathan S. Damashek, the best part of his job is being able to stand up for people who deserve their day in court. “I like fighting for the little guy against the large corporate defendants and insurance carriers to help them recover what they lost in their lives,” he says.

In this regard, Damashek seeks to recover monetary compensation for his clients that covers their past and future pain and suffering, medical expenses, lost earnings and benefits, and loss of their enjoyment of life. After graduating from New York Law School in 1997, Damashek started his career...

My passion is family law. It is what drove me to become a lawyer, motivated me through law school, and gets me excited to start my day. Family law has always been a part of my life, in experience, study, and practice. A childhood spent in and out of domestic court piqued my interest in the different elements of such a complex and human-driven area of the law. My goal is to make every client feel heard in a situation where communication may have broken down. I will vigorously advocate for all of my clients, because I am...

Arthur Larkin is a civil rights litigator with nearly thirty years’ experience in the state and federal courts, and over the past twenty years he had handled some of the highest profile wrongful conviction and class action lawsuits in New York City. He has negotiated settlements worth over $75 million in those lawsuits as well as numerous other lawsuits. With fifteen years’ experience defending the City in such matters, Arthur knows how best to present a winning case at trial and/or during settlement discussions.

Glen A. Kendall has an exceptional track record representing small and medium-sized businesses and individuals in complex, high stakes litigation and arbitration across the New York area.

He regularly serves as lead counsel in business and employment matters involving breach of contract, fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, employment discrimination, restrictive covenants, defamation, trade secret misappropriation, and copyright and trademark infringement. Mr. Kendall also handles trusts and estates matters involving probate, will contests, contested accountings, and fiduciary removal proceedings. Clients entrust Mr. Kendall because of his compassion, zealous advocacy, and creativity in problem-solving.

A significant portion of Mr. Kendall’s practice involves...

Mariya Ortynska is a trademark and copyright attorney and Managing Attorney at Ortynska Law PLLC. She offers legal guidance on matters involving intellectual property and emerging technologies. Mariya's core services are developing strategies for brand protection and enforcement in the U.S. and internationallym managing trademark and copyright registrations with the USPTO and the USCO, drafting and negotiating IP-related contracts, addressing online enforcement and domain name disputes and advising on legal aspects of emerging technologies, including AI and blockchain. Mariya has substantial experience with Madrid Protocol filings and in safeguarding brand portfolios on a global scale. She has assisted clients in securing trademark...

I have practiced business law for two decades, and have significant experience in counseling companies from their start-up phase through a sale. My experience includes negotiating strategic transactions and advising on day to day business issues. I have significant experience in technology transactions, from SaaS to Agile development and traditional software licensing.

I am a New York-based corporate lawyer with more than 15 years of experience representing middle market public companies, particularly in technology, retail, mining and energy businesses, in securities law compliance and corporate governance matters, financing transactions and corporate acquisitions and mergers. I have guided several dozen U.S. public companies and foreign private issuers in complying with federal securities law periodic reporting requirements and new regulations including the JOBS Act, the Dodd-Frank Act and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. I also advise major shareholders and corporate insiders in resales of restricted securities, estate planning transactions involving public company stock and compliance with insider...

Mr. Williams' experience includes both trial and transactional work. Mr. Williams has appeared in Federal and State courts, representing individuals and businesses in various matters, including claims involving Employment Discrimination, Bankruptcy Adversarial Proceedings, Breach of Contract, Real Estate Disputes, Real Estate Partition, Real Estate Litigation, Shareholder Disputes, and Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOP). On the transactional side of his practice, Mr. Williams focuses on Private Placement Memorandum (PPM), Choice of Entities issues, Partnership Dissolution, Post-and-pre-nuptial Agreements, and Trusts and Estate Planning.

Clients and colleagues call Barry Barnett an “incredibly gifted lawyer” (Chambers and Partners) who is “magic in the courtroom” (Who’s Who Legal), “the top antitrust lawyer in Texas” (Chambers and Partners), and “a person of unquestioned integrity” (David J. Beck, founder of Beck Redden). Barnett is a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers, and Lawdragon has named him one of the top 500 lawyers in the United States three years in a row. Best Lawyers in America has honored him as “Lawyer of the Year” for Bet-the-Company Litigation (2019 and 2017) and Patent Litigation (2020) in Houston. Based in...

MICHAEL GUNZBURG has 30 years of extensive civil litigation experience as a New York City personal injury and medical malpractice attorney. He has also represented a variety of business clients in civil litigation, business transaction and real estate matters. Many business people sometimes find themselves in disputes that require experienced trial counsel to handle and resolve. Michael Gunzburg has extensive experience resolving civil disputes, involving personal injury, medical malpractice and business matters at arbitration, mediation or before a jury at trial.

Michael Gunzburg graduated from Boston University with a B.S.B.A. in 1982 concentrating in business management and accounting, and graduated from...

Named a Super Lawyer for 2023, Michael Ciarlo has been practicing Real Estate law since 1999, providing successful and experienced results for his clients. During this time, his extensive knowledge of commercial, business, and real estate litigation has benefited the clients of the firm. He has a wide range of experience negotiating, analyzing, resolving, and litigating all aspects of real estate, business, co-op, condo, and landlord/tenant matters. Mr. Ciarlo brings a significant depth of understanding to his role in advising large and small businesses, co-ops, condominiums, landlords, tenants, and individuals in their disputes and litigation. Mr. Ciarlo graduated from New...

A former investigative journalist, Mark is a successful anti-fraud attorney with more than twenty years of experience in complex civil litigation. He has represented qui tam whistleblowers under the False Claims Act as well as victims of fraud under the federal securities laws and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). His efforts have resulted in the recovery of hundreds of millions of dollars for clients.

Prior to founding Mark A. Strauss Law, PLLC, Mark was a partner at Kirby McInerney LLP, a respected plaintiffs’ class action firm that was named one of the “Most Feared Plaintiffs’ Firms” by Law360.com....

Mesothelioma lawyer Robert I. Komitor is a partner at Levy Phillips & Konigsberg, LLP, and serves as lead trial lawyer specializing in products liability, negligence, and personal injury cases involving mesothelioma, hazardous wastes, and pollution. Bob was named one of the nation's Best Lawyers, in the area of mass torts, in Gregory W. Smith and Steven W. Naifeh's The Best Lawyers in America 2005-2012 (Woodward/White). Bob has consistently won some of the highest damage awards in the nation. For three consecutive years, he made The National Law Journal's list of lawyers winning the highest verdicts. He was trial lawyer on the "New...

Alex Umansky is a dedicated New York workplace discrimination attorney at Law Office of Yuriy Moshes, P.C. He works at the forefront of the fight for employee rights, and is committed to continuing his stellar track record of obtaining substantial and just verdicts for his clients. Among his career successes have been multiple six-figure verdicts and judgments, including one for $400,000 and a seven-figure verdict of $1,692,000 in a construction accident case, which was one of the top verdicts in New York that year.

Mr. Umansky’s commitment to fighting on behalf of those that have been wronged is reflected in his...

Raised in Brooklyn, New York, Yuriy Moshes remained close to his roots as he received a Bachelors of Science degree from Brooklyn College and a Juris Doctor degree from the Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center.

During his years of practice, Yuriy has concentrated in litigation and real estate transactions as his areas of expertise. Through the years, he has successfully helped hundreds of homeowners in New York and New Jersey remain in their homes or, in the alternative, pursue liquidation options.

Yuriy has also assisted clients with all forms of commercial and residential transactional
work, including the preparation of various types...

I am a former Assistant District Attorney from the Bronx County District Attorney's Office, who specializes in Criminal Defense and Disciplinary Law. I represent union members and private clientele and practice in NYC, Long Island, Westchester, and Upstate New York.

Monteza Law Firm, P.C.- a boutique Immigration Law Firm based in NYC- was founded for a man who immigrated to the US himself, giving him the ability to understand his clients' concerns in a way that many other attorneys simply are not able to. Attorney Monteza practices exclusively in the area of Immigration Law and he has the knowledge and experience necessary to handle most challenging immigration cases like Cancellation of Removal/Deportation, filing Appeal against the denials or Motion to Reopen (MTR), Waivers, U-Visas, VAWA, etc. Attorney Monteza received his Masters of Law degree (LLM) on 2004 from the Yeshiva University,...

Larry Cary is a Founding Member of Cary Kane LLP. He has practiced labor, employment and employee benefits law for nearly 25 years. He has been involved with the American labor movement for over 35 years. Prior to co-founding the firm, Mr. Cary was the senior partner in the labor department of Vladeck, Waldman, Elias & Engelhard, PC., where he represented unions and benefit plans for 17 years. He also previously served as in-house general counsel to the Amalgamated Service and Allied Industries Joint Board, ACTWU, and its benefit plans.

He is licensed to practice law in the State of...

Nadezhda “Nadia” Liberg is an immigration attorney and the founder of Liberg & Associates and of New York Immigration Center. After obtaining her J.D. equivalent law degree at Pacific National University in Russia, Nadia attended St. John’s University School of Law in New York where she graduated with an L.L.M Degree. She is licensed to practice law in the State of Missouri. Nadia focuses her legal practice on helping individuals, families, working professionals, persons with extraordinary abilities, entrepreneurs, and investors to obtain visas, green cards, and citizenship to the United States. She also represents US employers sponsoring foreign workers for temporary visas...

Dario Anthony Chinigo, is an attorney with more than 15 years of experience in Personal Injury Litigation, and an associate with the firm of Hofmann & Schweitzer since 2004. Having immigrated to the United States from his native Italy in 1983, Dario is especially sensitive to the issues and problems faced by immigrants who are injured as a result of others' negligence. He speaks, reads and writes Italian fluently, and is conversational in Spanish.

With 18 years experience in tort litigation and with a diversified background which includes marine construction, Tim Schweitzer, partner with the law firm of Hofmann & Schweitzer, has unique insight into the needs of his clients. Tim specializes in personal injury matters, with special emphasis on maritime(Jones Act and Longshore Harbor Workers), construction worker tort claims and railroad (F.E.L.A.) claims. He has successfully resolved hundreds of personal injury suits through settlement and by jury verdict.

G. Oliver Koppell, a cum laude graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, has a distinguished legacy of service in both the private and public sectors. He brings more than 40 years of legal experience to bear on every case, and has successfully represented clients in many areas of practice. Mr. Koppell is a former New York State Attorney General. In addition, he has served as a member of the New York State Assembly and the New York City Council.

Mr. Koppell has vast experience in both trial and appellate courts across New York and beyond. In fact, he has...

Sumeet Sondhi is counsel to The Blanch Law Firm. Mr. Sondhi has worked in conjunction with Ryan Blanch on a myriad of matters, ranging from government investigations to white collar and antitrust crimes, his specialties being real estate fraud and complex mortgage fraud matters.

Mr. Sondhi’s extensive knowledge and experience have resulted in a number of favorable outcomes for the firm’s clients. He has represented clients and companies charged with an array of white collar crimes, including:

*Price Fixing: Represented a billion dollar air cargo company in a DOJ industry-wide criminal antitrust investigation regarding alleged price fixing

*Tax Evasion: Represented a Partner in...

Joseph Kilada began his career at one of the most prestigious public interest law firms in Manhattan handling complex legal issues and trials. Thereafter, he entered private practice starting a litigation law firm devoted to zealously serving the needs of his clients.

Joseph Kilada is admitted to practice in New York State and is also admitted to practice before various federal courts including the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. In 2006, Mr. Kilada was admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court where he had the pleasure of personally meeting several Supreme Court Justices including newly appointed, Chief Judge John...