Leav & Steinberg, LLP

Focus and where the firm works

Personal injury has been the whole of this firm's work since 1999. Leav & Steinberg LLP works out of New York City and takes cases across New York State and the surrounding tri-state area. Its lawyers hold admission in New York State and in the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York. Those two federal districts cover the courts across Long Island, Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx and the lower Hudson Valley.

The firm represents people hurt by negligence and families bringing wrongful death claims. Federal admission carries weight when an injury claim moves out of state court, for instance a crash that crosses state lines or a product made elsewhere, and it suits a firm that draws cases from a wide area. As a reviewer, I read that combination of state and federal reach as a practice built to follow a case wherever the right forum sits. A quarter century in the same field also tells a reader that the firm has seen how these cases resolve.

The range of injury work

The practice areas page runs through seven categories, and each one carries its own detail. Premises liability covers commercial and residential buildings, sidewalks, elevators and defective maintenance. Transportation work reaches automobiles, buses, subways, trains, bicycles, motorcycles and airplanes. Medical malpractice is a named area, with missed diagnoses, surgical errors, birth injuries, cerebral palsy, brain damage and LASIK matters set out inside it.

The rest of the roster covers product liability for unsafe products, construction site accidents, general negligence and nursing home negligence. Product liability itself splits three ways in New York law: a design defect, a manufacturing defect or a failure to warn, and each one asks a different question of the evidence. General negligence is the broad category underneath the rest, the home for injuries that fall outside a tidy label, such as a falling object or an assault made possible by poor security. In practice these categories share a spine: proving that someone owed a duty, fell short of it and caused a measurable harm.

Wrongful death runs beside the injury work as a claim of its own, and the firm names it directly. In New York a wrongful death action is brought by the personal representative of the estate, and it runs on its own two-year clock from the date of death. The estate must also be formally opened and a representative appointed before the suit proceeds, a probate step unique to death cases. The damages focus on the economic loss to survivors, so these cases often turn on proof of lost income, support and services.

How these claims tend to move

Injury cases in New York usually open with an investigation and a filed complaint, then a discovery phase where both sides exchange records and take depositions. Medical malpractice claims add a certificate of merit, a signed statement that a qualified professional reviewed the file and found a basis to proceed. Construction accident claims often turn on specific Labor Law sections that govern falls and site safety. Claims against a city agency or transit authority carry a notice of claim that a lawyer must file within a tight window before any lawsuit begins. This sequence is standard across New York injury firms, and it explains why an injury firm keeps trial lawyers, managing attorneys and counsel on hand at once.

Transportation and construction claims up close

The transportation list is broad enough to signal how the firm sources its cases. Automobile and motorcycle crashes are the daily volume of most injury firms in New York, and they usually start with a no-fault insurance claim before any lawsuit. Bus, subway and train claims run on a separate procedural track, because a suit against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority or the City moves through a notice of claim and a statutory hearing before trial. Bicycle and pedestrian injuries carry their own comparative fault questions on crowded city streets. Airplane matters are rarer and can pull in federal aviation rules.

Construction accidents are their own listed area, and New York treats them differently from an ordinary fall. The state gives injured construction workers statutory protections around elevation, falling objects and site safety, and those Labor Law sections shape both liability and the size of a claim. The firm also handles premises liability, where a fall on a sidewalk, in an elevator or inside a poorly kept building turns on who controlled the space and what they knew about the danger. Holding both areas lets a single team match the theory of a case to the right body of law.

Why the clock matters early

Time limits do much of the quiet work in these cases. A routine injury claim in New York generally allows three years to sue, while a case against a public body can require a notice of claim within ninety days. Medical malpractice carries its own shorter period, measured with rules about continuous treatment. A firm that takes transit, municipal and malpractice cases side by side has to track several of these clocks at once, which is one practical reason an injury firm staffs more than a single lawyer per matter.

Medical malpractice and elder care

The medical malpractice work is described in unusual detail for a directory listing. The firm names missed diagnoses, surgical errors, birth injuries, cerebral palsy, brain damage and LASIK matters. Birth injury and cerebral palsy cases are among the most document-heavy in the field. They often need fetal monitoring strips, hospital records and several medical opinions before a lawyer even files the complaint. LASIK claims are a narrower niche, and the firm lists them by name.

Nursing home negligence rounds out the list, and it overlaps with the elder care worries many New York families carry. These cases can involve pressure injuries, falls, medication errors or understaffing, and they draw on both state health regulations and the resident's own care records. New York gives nursing home residents a set of statutory rights, and a violation of those rights can support a claim on its own. A firm that pairs malpractice with nursing home work keeps the same clinical review skills in play across both.

Both malpractice and nursing home cases lean on records that already exist, so the early work is often reading before arguing. Charts, timelines and expert review shape whether a case moves forward at all. That front-loaded effort is part of why these matters take longer than a straightforward accident claim, and why a firm keeps counsel and senior partners available to sign off on the medicine.

How the team is built

The attorney directory names a dozen lawyers across several tiers. Daniel T. Leav and Edward A. Steinberg are the two named partners on the door. Alexander Kran, III and Ricardo J. Martinez are listed as partners as well, and Daniela F. Henriques holds the managing partner title. Rikki Davidoff is the managing attorney, a role that usually runs the flow of active files.

The associates listed are Regina Koyfman, Eric D. Love, Justin V. White and Philip Schultze. Richard A. Gurfein and Preston J. Douglas are named as counsel to the firm, a title that usually marks a senior lawyer who advises on cases in a support capacity. That mix of partners, a managing partner, a managing attorney, associates and counsel gives a case more than one level of staffing, which fits injury work where a single matter can run for years before it resolves. In injury work that continuity matters, because the lawyer who takes a client's first call may still be trying the case years later.

What the record shows

Two of the partners have public detail attached to their names. The firm states that Daniel T. Leav is a trial attorney and that his verdicts and settlements over the past ten years exceed $40 million. Edward A. Steinberg represents people in personal injury and medical malpractice cases, and the firm says he has done this work for the past twenty years. Both partners carry the firm's name, which places their records at the front of how the firm presents itself. Those are the two figures the site puts forward, and I am repeating them as the firm states them.

A verdict comes from a judge or jury after trial, while a settlement is agreed before or during the case, and injury lawyers commonly report the two together. In my opinion a ten-year money figure and a twenty-year track are the kind of claims a reader can actually weigh, because each one is specific and attached to a named lawyer. The site also states that its lawyers belong to several trial lawyer and bar associations, a common marker of active courtroom practice.