Elder lawyer referral needed, NYC
July 23, 2010 7:54 AM   Subscribe

Recommendation needed for quality elder attorney in New York City area ( willing to travel a bit to save money). Areas of expertise would be asset management to meet requirements of assistance programs, irrevocable trusts etc, Medicaid, SSD, and Pooled Income Trusts. Any recommendations from personal experience or leads to a decent referral source would be much appreciated.

Rant: What is with this white wall of inscrutability when it comes to the legal profession on line? When one searches for objective information all that is available are scads of advertisements or bland referral pages with name, address, maybe field of expertise and if one is really lucky, education. No reviews of any sort, no stats as to percentages of case load in a particular field, no idea of success rate, no way to judge at all. The best one can do is find a specialty professional association get a list of attorneys in your geographic location and then throw a dart at the list to decide.
posted by flummox to Law & Government (6 answers total)
 
Best answer: Don't have a recommendation, but with respect to the rant, it's against the code of ethics (yes, there is such a thing, though it varies by jurisdiction). There are very elaborate rules about attorney advertising, and falling afoul can get a lawyer into a lot of trouble. Objective information is particularly pernicious--a lawyer can't tell you that she has an "80% success rate in malpractice cases." It's viewed as inherently deceptive.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 8:05 AM on July 23, 2010


no stats as to percentages of case load in a particular field, no idea of success rate

In my state of practice, those things are specifically banned. In fact, you're not really supposed to list examples of what you've been able to get other clients in the past, because that is viewed as promising people outcomes, which is a huge, huge, huge no-no.
posted by joyceanmachine at 8:15 AM on July 23, 2010


By specifically banned, I mean that lawyers are specifically not allowed to advertise them or, I believe, tell them to prospective clients.
posted by joyceanmachine at 8:16 AM on July 23, 2010


And usually you can't say you are an "Elder Law Expert," either--though lawyers often are allowed to say whether they're a member of the Elder Law Section of the NYS Bar Association, or if they have an advanced degree (e.g., an LLM in tax). It sounds like you are going about this the right way, though.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 8:23 AM on July 23, 2010


Best answer: Joseph Rosenberg, a professor at CUNY Law School, co-wrote the LexisNexis-published treatise on Elder law in New York. He runs the Elder Law clinic at CUNY, but they serve only low-income clients. His co-author, David Goldfarb, has a firm with offices in the Empire State Building. Here is a site his firm hosts for elder law issues.
posted by turtlewithoutashell at 11:23 AM on July 23, 2010


To tack on a little personal experience: I don't know David Goldfarb, but Joseph Rosenberg is a zealous advocate. I expect Mr. Goldfarb is as well.
posted by turtlewithoutashell at 11:27 AM on July 23, 2010


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