Davidow, Davidow, Siegel & Stern, LLP

Focus and practice areas

Most of the firm's work centers on aging, incapacity, and the passing of assets between generations. Elder law, Medicaid planning, and special needs planning form one side of that. Estate planning forms the other, through wills, revocable trusts, and irrevocable trusts. The firm also handles probate, estate administration, and guardianships.

Long-term care planning and advance directives such as health care proxies are part of the same work. Tax planning supports the estate side, since larger estates and lifetime gifts carry tax questions in New York. In my opinion, the elder law and estate planning focus defines the firm's day-to-day work.

A second track runs alongside that focus. The firm counsels clients on business formation and partnership agreements, and it handles real estate transactions.These services often connect to the same families, since a business interest or a home is frequently the principal asset in an estate plan.

Who the work serves

Elder law reaches families dealing with long-term care, and the costs behind it shape much of the planning. Nursing home care in the state can cost thousands of dollars a month, which is why Medicaid eligibility drives so many cases. Special needs planning covers a different group, namely families providing for a relative with a disability over that person's lifetime. The estate planning work then brings these together into wills, trusts, and directives.

How the firm took its present form

Harry A. Davidow founded the firm in 1913. His sons, Wallace and Sanford Davidow, joined and grew it over the following decades. That gives the firm a history of more than a century on Long Island.

Harry's grandson, Lawrence Eric Davidow, later changed the firm's direction. He redirected its work toward elder law, special needs, and estate planning. He is Senior and Managing Partner and holds the CELA designation, a certification in elder law. He also wrote a book on elder law planning for New Yorkers.

The firm publishes educational material under the name Listen to Lawrence. That work includes seminars, letters, a book, and a podcast. It explains planning topics to the public, which fits a field where many clients face these decisions for the first time.

How the team is built

The firm lists a group of partners, of counsel attorneys, an associate, a director of elder law services, and paralegals. Lawrence Eric Davidow heads the firm as Senior and Managing Partner.

Lawrence A. Siegel is a Senior Partner. Michelle Jablonsky, Hariklea D. Baialardo, and Courtney Abbott are partners. Patricia F. Baxley is an associate attorney. Steven H. Stern, Christina A. Wilcox, Oded Ben-Ami, Kim Smith, and Michael D. Angiulo hold of counsel roles.

That range of titles spreads the work across attorneys at different levels. The presence of a director of elder law services points to how much of the firm's practice runs through that field. Paralegals handle the document work that Medicaid and estate matters generate in volume.

What the elder law work involves

The services the firm names follow well-defined steps under New York law. Medicaid planning looks at eligibility rules and asset limits, and applications in the state run through the local department of social services. The federal rules include a five-year look-back period on many transfers, which affects how families plan in advance. Applicants often need to document assets and transfers going back years, and that is where planning ahead helps.

Special needs planning often uses a supplemental needs trust, which holds assets for a person with a disability and keeps public benefits in place. Guardianship cases for adults in New York go before a court under Article 81 of the Mental Hygiene Law, where a judge decides who may make decisions for someone who cannot. These are general features of the work, and they show why the firm groups the services together.

Trusts and their uses

Revocable and irrevocable trusts do different jobs. A revocable trust stays under the maker's control and can change during life, and it often keeps an estate out of probate. An irrevocable trust moves assets out of the maker's hands, which can matter for Medicaid eligibility and for estate tax. The firm prepares both kinds, along with the wills that sit beside them.

Probate and estate administration move through the Surrogate's Court after a death. Wills and trusts set out who receives assets and who manages them. Health care proxies name an agent to make medical decisions when a person cannot. The firm's estate planning services touch each of these steps.

Where the firm works

The firm runs two offices on Long Island, one in Islandia and one in Mattituck. It works with clients across Nassau and Suffolk Counties. The two locations place it near families in both central Suffolk and the eastern end of the island.

Mattituck is on the North Fork, which puts the firm within reach of the East End as well as the more populated western towns. That spread matters in elder law, where clients often prefer an office they can reach close to home.

The business formation, partnership, and real estate services extend the firm's help to clients who need those matters handled alongside their estate plans. Its Listen to Lawrence material carries the same subjects to a wider audience through seminars, a book, letters, and a podcast. The seminars and podcast keep those explanations available between office visits.