The Law Offices of Mitchell I. Weingarden, pllc

Focus and practice areas

The firm works across three connected areas of law. It handles employment and labor law, business and commercial litigation, and matters that go before Surrogate's Court. Each area touches how people and companies deal with work, money, and disputes.

Labor law and employment law overlap. Labor law leans toward unions and collective bargaining, and employment law covers the individual working relationship. The firm names both areas, which points to work on each kind of question.

Both sides of the employment relationship

Employment cases usually put a worker on one side and an employer on the other. The firm accepts either role. Many employment lawyers pick one side and keep to it. Mitchell Weingarden takes cases from workers and from the companies that hire them, so the firm sees wage claims, contract questions, and workplace disputes from both points of view.

The business and commercial litigation work covers disagreements between companies and between business partners. The firm also handles dispute resolution, so some matters may settle before a trial. In my opinion, pairing litigation with dispute resolution gives a client room to weigh a courtroom fight against a negotiated outcome.

Background of the founding attorney

Mitchell Ian Weingarden founded the firm and has practiced law since 1984. His work before and alongside private practice spans criminal, corporate, and academic settings.

He served as an Assistant District Attorney in the Brooklyn homicide division. That job puts a lawyer in front of juries on the most serious cases a prosecutor brings. He later worked as a Vice President in the legal department of a Fortune 500 company, which is corporate legal work inside a large business.

Two threads run through that background. A prosecutor builds cases and argues them in open court. A corporate vice president reads contracts and weighs legal risk for a business. The firm's present mix of litigation and commercial work draws on both.

Teaching, service, and training

His teaching and service fill out the record. He has taught as an adjunct professor at New York University's School of Continuing and Professional Education. He also served as an arbitrator for the Better Business Bureau, a role that means hearing a consumer dispute and issuing a decision. He holds a B.S. in accounting and has acted as counsel to Triletics, a maker of exercise devices.

As a reviewer, I read the accounting degree as a practical fit with the business litigation work, where a claim often rests on financial records and how they are read.

Where the firm works and how it meets clients

The office is in White Plains, and the firm takes clients across a wide part of the New York City region. That reach covers Westchester County and the boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Queens, and the Bronx, along with Yonkers, Greenburgh, and Mamaroneck. The office is a block from the White Plains Metro-North station, a help for clients traveling in from the city.

The firm offers free phone consultations. A first call gives a prospective client a way to describe a problem and hear an early read on it. The firm also schedules appointments on weekday evenings. An evening slot makes it easier for a working client to speak with a lawyer without losing daytime hours.

How these cases proceed

Employment and labor cases tend to follow a few common paths. A dispute may open with an internal complaint or a demand letter, move to an administrative agency such as a state labor board, and reach a court if the parties stay apart. Because the firm acts for employees and employers, it can build a matter from whichever side hires it.

The firm also works through dispute resolution and arbitration. An arbitration hearing runs like a private trial, with a neutral third party who listens to both sides and rules. Mitchell Weingarden has held that neutral seat for the Better Business Bureau, so he has seen such hearings from the decision-maker's chair. That experience shows him how a neutral weighs evidence.

Surrogate's Court handles estates and the affairs of people who have died. Work there can include probating a will, settling questions among heirs, and managing the assets of an estate. Many of these matters bring in an executor or an administrator, the person who carries out the estate. That person often needs a lawyer to file papers with the court and to answer challenges from heirs.

Business disputes

Business and commercial litigation follows the ordinary stages of a civil case. A complaint sets out the claim, both sides exchange documents and take testimony, and the matter moves toward settlement or trial. The accounting background matters here, since many business disputes come down to what the numbers show.

The business and commercial litigation practice deals with the problems that come out of running a company. These include contract disagreements, claims between partners, and questions about a company's management. The firm's stated experience in these matters goes back to 1984, when Mitchell Weingarden began to practice law.