Marino Law Group, PLLC

Focus and practice areas

Real estate runs through much of the firm's work, and the range around it is wide. Marino Law Group, PLLC handles residential and commercial property, corporate and business law, commercial litigation, residential and commercial lending, mortgage banking, family and matrimonial law, tax, property management, and wills, trusts, and estates. The firm is based in Pittsford, New York, and has served clients since 1997.

On the property side, the work covers contracts, leases, title reviews, and closings. The firm also takes on 1031 exchanges, short sales, foreclosures, and tax liens. That spread points to a practice comfortable with routine transactions and with the harder cases that grow out of them.

How the team is built

The firm names six attorneys, and their backgrounds lean toward property and business law.

Backgrounds and credentials

James A. Marino earned his J.D. from Emory University School of Law in 1993 and holds bar admission in New York and New Jersey. His work spans real estate, mortgage banking, corporate law, international trade, and estate planning.

Marino represents a national lender on residential real estate closings and is corporate counsel to several Rochester-area businesses. He also handles trust administration and commercial litigation. In my opinion that combination gives him a working view of both sides of a property deal, the borrower's and the lender's.

Peter J. Tumminelli chairs the Commercial Real Estate Department. He earned his law degree from Albany Law School in 1985 and brings more than thirty years of real estate experience, with many thousands of closings behind him. He holds an accounting degree, a law degree, and a master's in taxation law, and he worked at Dollinger Associates for more than three years before joining the firm.

The associate and of counsel

Michele D. Ferrara joined as an associate in 2017. She earned her J.D. from Lewis & Clark's Northwestern School of Law in 1994 and is admitted in New York. Her practice covers residential real estate, where she has represented buyers, sellers, and lenders, and a portion of her work is in matrimonial law.

Jay N. Malone is of counsel. He holds a J.D. from the University at Buffalo School of Law, earned in 1998, and is admitted in New York. He brings more than twenty-five years of business and legal experience, including advertising sales and management at a Fortune 500 company and running a small family business. His legal work includes real estate sales and purchases, mortgage refinances, and corporate asset transactions.

The firm also names Matthew Mix and John I. Menard among its attorneys. Several members of the group hold advanced degrees in taxation law, which fits the tax and estate planning work the firm takes on.

What the real estate practice covers

Residential closings make up a steady part of the workload. The firm represents buyers, sellers, and lenders, and it prepares the paperwork that moves a sale to completion: purchase contracts, leases, and title reviews. Tumminelli's closing count points to a team that runs these files at volume.

Commercial real estate runs alongside the residential side, under Tumminelli's department. The firm handles 1031 exchanges, short sales, foreclosures, and tax liens when a property carries debt beyond its value. As a reviewer, I read the tax-law training on the team as a practical asset here, since exchange and lien work turns on tax rules.

A 1031 exchange lets an owner roll the proceeds of one investment property into another and defer the capital gains tax, inside strict timing windows set by the tax code. That kind of matter needs the deal and the tax rules read together, which is where the firm's taxation background comes in.

Business, lending, and estate work

Outside real estate, the firm forms companies and provides general counsel to businesses. It advises lending institutions on how to structure loan transactions, which ties the corporate practice back to the real estate and mortgage work.

Company formation usually starts with a choice of structure, an LLC, a corporation, or a partnership, and a filing with the state. General counsel work then continues past that first filing, covering contracts and day-to-day questions as the business runs.

The firm covers residential and commercial lending and mortgage banking, so it can sit on either side of a financing. Marino's own corporate counsel role with Rochester-area businesses fits this part of the practice.

Wills, trusts, and estates

Wills, trusts, and estates round out the work, along with the trust administration Marino handles. Property management and business transactions also appear among the firm's stated areas.

Wills and trusts set out how assets pass after death, and trust administration is the stage where a named trustee carries those instructions out. Handling both means the firm can draft the plan and then help see it through.

Reach across upstate New York

From its Pittsford base, the firm serves the Rochester, Buffalo, and Syracuse areas of New York State. That footprint covers three of the larger markets in the upstate region. The firm has run this practice since 1997.

The attorney roster carries long tenures in the field. Tumminelli reports more than thirty years and many thousands of closings, and Malone brings more than twenty-five years across business and law. The firm's law degrees date back as far as 1985, when Tumminelli graduated from Albany Law School.