Practice Areas

In its December 10, 2014 decision in Sabowitz v. Sabowitz, the Appellate Division, Second Department, affirmed the granting of summary judgment dismissing the husband’s challenge to the validity of the parties’ stipulation in which they settled their divorce action. That award had been made below by Supreme Court, Kings County Justice Eric I. Prus. In

Justice Phillip R. Rumsey of New York’s Cortland County Supreme Court has given the New York matrimonial bar a wonderful Christmas present with his recent decision in the case Hunsinger v. Hunsinger, 2014 N.Y. Slip Op 51633(U). Judge Rumsey describes a cast of characters and salacious shenanigans that are amusing, even by Manhattan standards –

Matrimonial trials are devastatingly expensive.  Appeals, when necessary, add even more insult to that financial injury.  Yet, if things do not go your way at trial, you may have no choice other than to seek appellate review. At that juncture, there is (for obvious reasons) a desire on the part of many litigants to proceed

As of January 31, 2014, the combined parental income used for purposes of calculating the presumptive amount of child support amount under New York’s Child Support Standards Act (CSSA) increased from $136,000 to $141,000. This increase was automatically triggered by a provision of New York’s Social Services Law, which requires an increase in the “income

Today, Reuters reported that in 2013, there was a substantial increase in the number of wage claims filed by employees in both state and federal courts throughout the United States. According to the report, wage lawyers at Seyfarth Shaw predict that the trend will continue in 2014. According to Reuters, there has been a discernible

New York’s Appellate Division for the Second Department is, in all likelihood, the busiest appellate court in the United States. The justices of the Second Department hear appeals from trial courts in 11 different counties, ranging from rural Dutchess and Putnam Counties to urban Brooklyn and Queens. The Second Department’s decisions offer a kaleidescopic view

A New York parent who fails to pay his or her child support obligations faces a long list of potential penalties, including forfeiture of their driver’s license and passport. In truly egregious cases, courts can sentence non-compliant child support obligors to jail. This is precisely what happened to the obligor-father in the case Longman vs.

In this blog, I have discussed patterns that the New York divorce lawyers at Rapaport Law Firm have observed during our two decades attorneys for victims of domestic violence in New York and New Jersey. In my earlier post, entitled New York Courts Allow Testimony of Battered Women’s Syndrome, I wrote about the cyclical patterns

Earlier this year, Elizabeth Cioffi-Petrakis won an appeal overturning a bizarre premarital agreement with her millionaire husband. At the time, New York divorce lawyers described the decision as a landmark ruling. The decision garnered widespread attention in the media. Several of New York’s celebrity divorce attorneys suggested that the appellate court’s decision would have the

In recent years, much needed attention has finally been given to the horrific epidemic of bullying in our nation’s schools. Previously, the phenomenon of bullying in schools and colleges was relegated to the subject of jokes or parody. The message sent by Hollywood films such as Revenge of the Nerds was, in sum and substance,