Bashian P.C.

Where the practice concentrates

The firm's main line of work is estate and trust matters, and it covers both planning and disputes. Bashian P.C. handles estate, trust and accounting litigation, and it also drafts wills and sets up several types of trusts. Planning and litigation live under one roof here, so a client can build an estate plan and, later, defend it at the same firm.

The firm rounds out that core with related fields. It covers estate administration and probate, guardianship and guardianship litigation, and elder law that takes in Medicaid planning and long-term care. Business and commercial law, and the litigation that grows out of it, is part of the work. The firm also lists real estate and land use, appellate law, and high net worth matrimonial matters.

That range points to the clients the firm expects. A person with a sizable estate often has a business, real property, and family questions bound up together. Bashian P.C. keeps those threads in the same office.

How estate and trust disputes tend to run

Estate and trust litigation in New York usually starts in a Surrogate's Court, the court that oversees wills and estates. A will contest can turn on whether the document was signed properly, whether the person had capacity, or whether someone applied undue influence. Accounting litigation is narrower: a beneficiary asks a fiduciary to account for money in and money out, and the court reviews the figures. Because Bashian P.C. does both the planning and the courtroom work, its lawyers see how a document reads years after it was drafted.

Estate administration and probate run on a calendar of their own. After a death, the will goes to the Surrogate's Court, the court confirms an executor, the executor settles debts and taxes, and the remaining property passes to the heirs. Trusts can move part of that process out of public view, which is one reason planning lawyers set them up in advance. Bashian P.C. works both sides of this: it drafts the instruments and later guides them through the court.

Guardianship work follows a separate track. A court weighs whether an adult can manage personal or financial affairs, and it can appoint someone to step in. Elder law overlaps here, since Medicaid planning and long-term care often come up as a family looks ahead. In my opinion, a firm that keeps guardianship and elder law together is ready for the moment when a plan meets a real crisis.

The wider practice

Business and commercial disputes cover contracts, ownership splits, and the winding up of ventures. These matters often meet an estate when a business owner dies, and Bashian P.C. handles both sides.The firm also covers real estate and land use, and property is often a significant asset in an estate or a deal.

Appellate law is a separate skill from trial work. It turns on the written record and the briefs, and a case reaches it after a trial court has already ruled. Keeping appellate work in house means the firm can carry a matter past the first decision, on subjects it already knows.

How the team is built

The firm names three attorneys and describes itself as midsize. Gary E. Bashian is the principal. He is a past President of the Westchester County Bar Association, and he holds an LL.M. in Taxation, a graduate law degree in tax. The firm states that he has provided counsel on estates valued over $100 million. His own practice covers estate planning, trusts, guardianship, and estate and business litigation.

Two other attorneys, Antonette Naclerio and Adam M. Peska, appear on the firm's roster. Behind the lawyers, the firm counts more than 50 years of combined paralegal and staff experience, and it places the attorneys' combined experience above 85 years. A past president of a county bar association has usually spent years in local practice and taken on service work for the profession. As a reviewer, I read the tax LL.M. as the credential that fits the practice, since large estates raise tax questions at almost every step.

Where the firm reaches

Bashian P.C. works from three offices across two states. The main office is in White Plains, New York. The firm keeps a second office in Greenwich, Connecticut, and a third in Newburgh, New York. White Plains anchors Westchester County, Greenwich sits over the Connecticut line, and Newburgh reaches north into the Hudson Valley.

That spread covers a corridor of suburban New York and southern Connecticut. For estate and elder law clients, location carries weight, because Surrogate's Court filings and guardianship petitions are handled county by county. Three offices give the firm a footing in more than one of those counties.

What the record shows

The published record here is steady and specific about the work. Bashian P.C. states a clear focus on trusts and estates, backs it with a principal who has led the county bar and holds a graduate tax degree, and lists the surrounding fields an estate client is likely to need. The site does not list a founding year, and the 85 years it cites is combined attorney experience.

For someone weighing this firm, the useful facts are on the page. The practice centers on estates and the disputes around them, the principal carries a tax credential and a bar leadership role, and the offices cover Westchester, the lower Hudson Valley, and nearby Connecticut.