Adler Law Firm, PLLC

Where the firm puts its focus

Estate planning, probate, and real estate are the three areas the site lists as the firm's main work. Business law and elder law sit alongside them. Adler Law Firm, PLLC works out of Jericho, New York, and it serves Long Island and the surrounding cities. The firm calls itself a boutique practice.

That mix points toward clients planning ahead for family and property. Wills and trusts fall under the estate planning heading. So do advance directives, asset protection, estate taxes, retirement planning, and special needs planning.A firm that pairs estate planning with real estate covers two things that often move together, since a home is usually the main asset in a plan.

Estate planning the site describes

Advance directives here include a durable power of attorney and health care proxies. Both name someone to act if a person cannot act alone, one over money and property, the other over medical choices. The firm lists these on its home page.

Wills and trusts do different jobs. A will takes effect at death and passes through probate. A trust can hold assets during life and often keeps them out of the probate process. Asset protection and special needs planning cover narrower ground: the first guards property from certain claims, the second arranges support for a family member while protecting their benefits. The firm names all of these as services it provides.

Estate taxes and retirement planning point to the numbers side of a plan. New York sets its own estate tax with a filing threshold that shifts over time, and large retirement accounts carry their own tax rules when they pass to heirs. A firm that lists these under estate planning is signaling that it weighs the tax picture alongside the documents.

Probate, guardianship, and elder law

On the probate side the firm handles estate administration, probate avoidance, probate litigation, and guardianship. These are four distinct tasks. Estate administration is the work of settling an estate: it collects assets, pays debts, and passes on what remains. Probate avoidance is the planning done earlier to keep assets out of that court process.

Probate litigation comes up when someone contests a will or a distribution, and the matter goes before a Surrogate's Court judge in New York. Guardianship petitions ask a court to appoint someone to manage the affairs of a person who cannot do so alone. The presence of both planning and courtroom work suggests the firm handles these cases at the early stage and later in front of a judge.

Elder law sits close to this work. It usually covers planning for long term care, Medicaid eligibility, and the legal tools an aging client needs to stay in control of their affairs. Guardianship often enters the picture when that planning was not done in time. The firm lists elder law among its practice areas, which fits a practice already built around estate and probate matters.

Business and property services

Business clients can turn to the firm for entity formation and business succession planning. Entity formation is the setup of an LLC, corporation, or partnership, with the filings and agreements that go with it. Succession planning maps out who takes over a business when an owner steps back, which ties back to the estate planning work.

Real estate transactions are part of the practice too. The firm states that it holds both a real estate license and an insurance license. Those two licenses are unusual for a law office to note, and they point to a firm that can speak to the property and coverage sides of a deal as well as the legal one.

A residential real estate matter in New York runs through attorney review, title work, and a closing where money and deed change hands. Having a lawyer handle the contract, the title review, and the closing is standard in the state. The firm places this alongside its planning work, so a client buying or selling a home can keep the property and the estate questions under one roof.

Who does the work

Four attorneys appear on the about page. Steven M. Adler is the founding attorney. Marissa Caputo is a partner. Andrew Stamas and Madeleine Laser are associate attorneys, and support staff round out the group. The firm says its attorneys share more than 50 years of combined experience.

The firm also says the attorneys handle each matter directly. For a boutique office that structure is believable, since a small roster keeps the named lawyers close to the files. In my opinion, the combined experience figure reads as a fair summary of a settled team, and it reads as a group total for the whole roster.

What the record shows

The website gives a clear read of the firm's scope. It names the attorneys by role, states a combined experience figure, and lists the practice areas with their sub-parts. The site does not state a founding year.

For someone weighing an estate plan or a probate matter on Long Island, the site sets out enough to start a conversation. As a reviewer, I would treat the named practice areas and the four listed attorneys as the firm's own account of its work. The firm handles wills, trusts, probate, guardianship, business formation, and real estate from its Jericho office.