Enea, Scanlan & Sirignano, LLP

Focus and practice areas

The firm concentrates on elder law and the legal planning that comes with aging and incapacity. Its services include Medicaid planning, wills, trusts and estates, probate and estate administration, guardianships, and special needs planning. Advance directives and powers of attorney fall within the wills, trusts and estates work. Asset protection planning belongs to the same set of services, and it looks at how to hold property so it stays available for a spouse or heirs while meeting the rules that govern care benefits.

Elder law covers a set of problems that families often meet at once: paying for long term care, protecting a home, and naming who decides when a person needs someone to act for them. The firm addresses these under New York law. In my opinion, keeping Medicaid planning and estate work in one firm suits clients who need both at the same moment.

How the Medicaid work is handled

Medicaid planning in New York separates home care from nursing home care, and each has its own eligibility rules. The firm prepares applications for both. It also works on spousal refusal, a New York provision that governs how a married couple's assets count toward eligibility. Pooled trusts and special needs trusts are among the tools it uses for clients who want to preserve income or assets.

New York applies a lookback period to nursing home Medicaid, so an application can turn on gifts or transfers made years before. Home care Medicaid follows its own timing and its own limits. Because the firm handles planning as well as filing, it can work with clients before a need arises and with families already facing a bill. Pooled trusts let some applicants direct excess income toward their care and keep eligibility.

These matters move through county Medicaid offices and, at times, through fair hearings when an application is questioned. Applications ask for years of financial records and careful timing of any transfers. As a reviewer, I read the firm's stated focus on eligibility and applications as the main part of its elder law work.

Estate and probate work

Beyond planning, the firm handles probate and estate administration, the process that follows a death. Probate in New York runs through the Surrogate's Court in the county where the person lived. An executor files the will, notifies heirs, pays debts and taxes, and distributes what remains. For an estate that lacks a will, an administrator does similar work under the court's rules. Estate administration can involve New York estate tax filings when an estate is large enough, along with income tax for the estate during administration.

Wills and trusts are the planning side of the same work. A will directs where property goes. A trust can hold and manage assets during life and after death. The firm drafts both, along with advance directives and powers of attorney that name who acts if a client loses capacity. Placing these documents alongside Medicaid planning lets one team account for how each choice affects the others.

How the team is built

The firm lists ten attorneys. The site marks two of them, George A. Sirignano Jr. and Richard S. Scanlan, as retired, and their names stay in the firm's name. The active attorneys it names are Anthony J. Enea, Sara E. Meyers, Lauren C. Enea, Stella King, Michael P. Enea, Robert Arbuco, Gianna O. Corona and Samantha A. Lyons. The attorneys report more than 150 combined years of legal experience.

Anthony J. Enea is the founder and managing member. He is certified as an elder law attorney by the National Elder Law Foundation, a credential that requires experience and a written examination in the field. He is a past chair of the Elder Law Section of the New York State Bar Association. He has authored hundreds of published articles on elder law, Medicaid planning, wills, trusts and estates, and guardianships.

Where the firm works

The firm keeps two offices in New York, one in White Plains and one in Somers. It serves clients in Westchester, Putnam, Rockland, Bronx, Dutchess and New York counties, along with New York City and the surrounding Hudson Valley. Two offices give the firm a base in lower Westchester and a base in the northern part of the county, closer to clients in each area.

That reach follows the elder law work. New York sets Medicaid rules at the state level, so the same body of law applies across those counties, even as local Medicaid offices differ in how they process cases.

Who the firm plans for

The firm works with seniors, with people who have disabilities, and with their families. It also works with younger clients who want to plan ahead. Special needs planning helps families provide for a relative with a disability while keeping that person's public benefits in place. A special needs trust holds assets for that relative under rules that separate the trust from the benefit test.

Guardianship proceedings are part of the firm's work as well. In New York, a guardianship petition goes before a court, which decides whether a person can manage personal and financial matters and who should hold that authority when help is needed. A guardianship can cover the person, the property, or both, and the court can limit it to the areas where help is needed. The firm handles these proceedings, and the same families often need the estate and Medicaid planning it provides.