Pyrros & Serres LLP

Focus and practice areas

The firm works in injury and disability law, and three connected areas cover most of its caseload. Those areas are workers' compensation, Social Security disability, and personal injury. Clients tend to reach the firm after a workplace injury or a health condition that keeps them from working.

Injuries within a compensation claim

Within workers' compensation, the site names specific kinds of harm the firm handles. These include construction site injuries, repetitive stress and motion injuries, and joint injuries. The firm also takes on injuries from lifting, pushing, or pulling, along with traumatic brain injuries.

Occupational disease sits a little apart from a single accident. It builds over time from exposure or repeated strain on the job, and it often needs medical proof linking the condition to the work. The firm lists this category directly, next to the sudden injuries most people picture on a job site.

Personal injury and third-party claims

On the personal injury side, the firm names auto accidents and slip-and-fall cases. It also pursues third-party claims that sit alongside a workers' compensation matter. One example the firm gives is a claim against the manufacturer of defective equipment, where that equipment caused the injury at work.

How the team is built

The firm names three attorneys: Michael C. Pyrros, Michael Serres, and Nicholas Rupwani. Each carries the title of attorney on the firm's pages. Lori Campbell runs daily operations as office manager.

The site states that the attorneys hold more than five decades of combined legal experience. In my opinion that combined figure carries real weight in this kind of work, because compensation and disability cases turn on steady procedural knowledge built over years. The public legal entity behind the practice is Pyrros & Serres LLP, and the firm uses the name Pyrros, Serres & Rupwani across its home, attorneys, and contact pages.

The firm dates itself to 2001. That founding year, stated on the home page, gives the practice more than two decades of continuous work in the same fields. That longevity is worth noting, because a firm that has stayed with compensation and disability law tends to know the local boards and adjusters well.

Where the firm reaches

The main office sits in Astoria, in the Queens borough of New York City. The firm keeps two more offices, one in Brooklyn and one in the Bronx. It says it serves clients across New York City, Long Island, and the surrounding metropolitan area.

That spread of offices fits the client base the firm describes. Injured workers and disability claimants often travel by public transit, and a presence in several boroughs shortens that trip. As a reviewer, I read the three locations as a practical choice for people who may be in pain or limited in movement.

What happens when a claim is denied

A large part of the firm's stated work involves claims that an agency or insurer has already turned down. The firm represents clients whose workers' compensation or Social Security disability claims have been denied. This is a distinct kind of matter, and it runs on appeals.

Social Security disability appeals

For general context, a denied Social Security disability claim moves through several review stages. The first is a request for reconsideration. If that step fails, the claim goes to a hearing before an administrative law judge, where medical records and testimony carry weight. Later stages include the Appeals Council and then federal court.

Workers' compensation appeals

Denied workers' compensation claims in New York follow their own path through the state Workers' Compensation Board. Hearings before a law judge, medical evidence, and firm deadlines all shape the result. A practice that handles these cases regularly knows where those deadlines fall. I offer that only as background on how such matters generally proceed.

What these cases ask of the evidence

Compensation and disability matters live on documentation more than on argument. Medical records, treatment histories, and reports from treating doctors form the backbone of a claim. Wage records and job descriptions often come into play too, since the value of a claim ties back to what the injury took away.

Deadlines run through all of it. Notice to an employer, filing windows with the board or the Social Security Administration, and appeal cut-offs each carry their own clock. A missed date can close a door that medical proof alone cannot reopen. Firms in this field spend much of their time keeping those clocks in view.

How the injury work fits together

Workers' compensation and personal injury often meet in a single accident, and the firm treats them together. Compensation covers medical care and lost wages through New York's no-fault system for work injuries. A third-party claim reaches beyond that system toward a negligent party outside the employer.

This pairing gives injured workers two possible sources of recovery from one event. The firm's home page points to exactly this setup when it describes pursuing a personal injury claim alongside a workers' compensation case. For someone hurt on a job site by faulty equipment, that combined approach can matter to the final outcome.

Auto accidents can follow the same double track when they happen on the clock. A delivery driver hurt in a crash may have a compensation claim through the employer and a separate injury claim against the other driver. The firm lists both auto accidents and third-party claims, which points to work of this shape.

The attorneys behind the practice

Michael C. Pyrros is a partner at the firm. He earned his bachelor's degree from American University in Washington, D.C. in 1985 and his Juris Doctor from Hofstra University School of Law in 1996. His practice centers on workers' compensation and Social Security disability, and it includes trial work before the New York Workers' Compensation Board. He is a past president of the Long Island City Lawyers Club, and he has lectured on workers' compensation law. In my view that mix of hearing-room work and teaching says something about how he approaches the field, since a lawyer who lectures on a subject has to keep current with how it shifts.

Michael Serres earned his Juris Doctor from St. John's University School of Law in 1989. He has been a partner at the firm since 2000, which places him among the practice's longer-serving lawyers. His practice covers workers' compensation and Social Security disability, and he represents injured and disabled clients in those matters.

Nicholas Rupwani received his legal education at Syracuse University College of Law. His profile lists 22 years of experience in practice. He is the third name the firm carries on its pages, alongside the two partners in the firm's legal name.

Language and reaching the office

Queens is a heavily multilingual borough, and one of the firm's partners can meet part of that range. Michael Pyrros is fluent in Greek and Spanish. That capacity lets him take a client's account in their own language, which can matter when the facts of an injury decide a claim. Astoria has a long-settled Greek community, and that overlap looks like a practical match.

The main office sits on the fifth floor at 31-19 Newtown Ave in Astoria. The firm keeps regular business hours, Monday through Friday, from 8:30 AM to 5 PM. Those set hours give injured workers and disability claimants a predictable window to reach a lawyer, which helps when someone is juggling medical appointments and time away from work. As a reviewer, I read the fixed schedule and the Queens address as signs of a practice built around clients who come in person.