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Joseph Adams
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Joseph Adams
Joseph H. Adams, ESQ. P.C.
53 Burd St.
Nyack, NY 10960-3265
Phone: (845) 353-2320 | Fax: (845) 353-6934
http://www.joelaw.com
Full legal service to businesses & real property owners
Legal Topic
Business Law
Preferred New Clients
My law office specializes in individual and corporate commercial work, including commercial bankruptcy, land use matters and litigations challenging land use decisions. My historical specialty is business and real estate-related litigation; my practice has evolved to include transactional deal-making work in these areas, and includes coverage of general practice matters for my business-oriented clientèle. My clients are individuals who own, operate, fund and rely on their business enterprise, which are essential to their livelihood and happiness.
Sub-Categories
Business Law
- Mediation/Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)
- Commercial Banks & Loans
- Commercial Leasing
- Mortgages & Foreclosures
- Reorganizations & Restructuring
- Workouts
- Business Successions
- Buying & Selling
- Closely Held Businesses
- Corporations
- Directors' & Officers' Liability
- Joint Ventures
- Limited Liability Companies (LLCs)
- Nonprofits & Tax-Exempt Corporations
- Partnerships
- Professional Corporations
- Shareholders' Rights
- Breach of Contract
- Contract Disputes
- Contract Drafting & Review
- Employment Contracts
- Franchises
- Non-Compete Contracts
- Secured Transactions
- Uniform Commercial Code
- Warranties
- Commercial Construction Contracts
- Construction Defects
- Construction Disputes
- Mechanics' Liens
- Creditor's Rights
- Garnishees
- Judgments
Bar Admissions
NY, Jan 1978
Bar Number: 1671460
Other Court Admissions
New York State, Eastern and Southern Districts of New York; Second Circuit Court of Appeals
Association Memberships
Rockland Bar Association; New York State Bar Association
Continuing Education
I regularly attend CLE seminars focusing on the substantive business and real estate areas of the law in which I practice, and in which I most frequently litigate. In doing so, I seek to bolster my background in such matters for future transactional work.
Example Cases
US Bankruptcy Court: Adversary Proceeding: As litigation counsel, representing limited partners from multiple real estate partnerships opposing turnover proceedings in which the general partner, who was later indicted and convicted of criminal conduct, was the principal of mortgage, real estate and financial services enterprise, allegedly operated a Ponzi scheme, and successfully kept partnership assets out of Chapter 7 bankruptcy estate.
US Bankruptcy Court: Adversary Proceeding: as Chapter 11 counsel, representation of landowner holding a 545 acre parcel of undeveloped real property in Putnam County, in Section 505 proceeding to determine tax liability, successfully reducing $800,000 tax claim to $ 200,000 at trial, and then compromising dispute on favorable terms to Debtor.
New York Supreme Court: In "bar title" action, representing owners of land parcel claimed to be subject to 1950s roadway easement never used or adopted by municipality for judgment to clear title of that easement to permit property to be subdivided and sold.
New York Supreme Court: In Article 78 proceeding, representing owner of a gas station which was a non-conforming prior use, before municipal land use boards, to obtain right to improve property with a canopy over its gas pumps, and successfully litigating court challenge to the adverse decisions of the municipal land use boards denying that right.
New York Supreme Court: In plenary proceeding, representing large real estate company as insured in insurance coverage dispute arising from the bankruptcy of Reliance Insurance Company, involving disputed terms of loss trust bonds issued by third party, including representation in court-ordered mediation that successfully resolved dispute.
Education
Degree:
J.D.
School:
New York University
City:
New York
State:
NY
Year:
1977
Degree:
B.A.
School:
University of Chicago
City:
Chicago
State:
IL
Year:
1971
Focus and Accomplishments:
Philosophy
Number of Attorneys
1
State Licensed In
New York
Firm Focus and History
My law office specializes in individual and corporate commercial work, including commercial bankruptcy, land use matters and litigations involving such matters. My historical specialty is business and real estate-related litigation. My practice has evolved to include transactional deal-making work in these areas, and includes general practice matters for my business-oriented clientèle. My clients are individuals who own, operate, fund and rely on their business enterprises to prosper.
My private legal practice opened in 1987 after I worked for ten years as an associate specializing in commercial litigation with established legal firms in New York City.
I originally maintained an office in New York, but moved my main office to Nyack New York, about 30 miles north of New York City on the Hudson River. I represent commercial, business and real estate clients in the New York metropolitan region.
Previous Employment Summary
My resume is posted on my web site at www.joelaw.com. I practiced at two prestigious Park Avenue firms in New York City, including Marshall Bratter et.al, Spengler Carlson et.al., and later at a small firm specializing in intellectual property matters, Leiberman Rudolph & Nowak. I began my career, somewhat eccentrically, as an associate for one of the premier criminal defense attorneys in New York briefly. In all of law firms at which I practiced, I specialized in commercial litigation matters.
Activities and Awards
Mediator, Commercial Division, New York Supreme Court, New York County
What is your opinion regarding clients educating themselves on legal issues?
Legal reasoning is a specialized form of thinking and analysis that most lay people are capable of understanding if it is explained coherently to them. Few aspects of legal reasoning involve concepts or ideas that are not readily accessible to a reasonably intelligent and practical person who can use the English language competently. Any type of self-education is to be encouraged. That said, however, the peculiar concept emphasis of legal reasoning is not a phenomenon that most lay people are going to "get" on their own without tutoring by their attorney. An attorney ALWAYS has an obligation to make the issues and legal concepts that arise in the client's litigation or transaction understood by the client, contemporaneously with the legal process. An attorney who fails to do that is not competent and should not be trusted by a client.
Are you willing to review documents prepared by clients?
Frequently, advising a client in transactions as to how to frame simple contracts, or how to take positions on issues that may arise in business or real estate transactions, can be a very effective and cost efficient method of proving legal assistance. That is so particularly when the stakes of the transaction are meaningful but not large enough for an attorney to appear and to take over a matter, which may provoke retention of attorneys on the other side, and escalate a minor matter into a big one.
Are you willing to coach clients who want to represent themselves?
Sometimes practical advice, particularly in transactions or relationships that have the potential to become adversarial, can be valuably given to a client on a background basis, effectively coaching them on proper conduct, strategy and even methods of presenting a point of view, or in engaging the opposing party productively. Some ethical questions arise about coaching or giving de facto representation to persons who appear in pro se litigations, which require analysis on a case by case basis.
Why did you decide to be a lawyer?
A failure of imagination at a critical stage in my life, which is a decision I have never regretted. I find the responsibility of representing others and protecting their vital financial interests, a rewarding and worthwhile professional occupation. My experience is that the detachment, objectivity and legal or strategic analysis that an attorney can bring to the business affairs of others enables an attorney to provide invaluable advice, or insight, coupled with strategic planning that principals often cannot summon for their own benefit. Conversely, I find that my clientèle who are thoughtful and engaged, inform me equally as to what they need and deserve to get.
What work experience and education helps you be a better lawyer?
Vanity forefends that I speak at length on such a topic. Maintaining my solo legal practice in the New York metropolitan area, where such an antiquated 19th century mode of practicing law is particularly difficult, requiring hard work and creativity to survive and prosper for a period of twenty years, has taught me to respect and admire the business accomplishments of my clients, and to share instinctively the need to protect their assets, and to facilitate their growth and striving for accomplishment.
Why did you decide on your primary area of practice?
I respect persons who undertake the risk and experience of creating or running their own businesses. My facility with language, instinctive aggression in intellectual matters, and my ability to speak effectively in an adversary context, made commercial and business-related litigation a natural and satisfying field of endeavor.
What do you like best about your career?
Freedom that is combined with responsibility to others, and is self-sustaining.
Tell us about your law firm:
I have a network of attorneys who specialize in matters that I would not handle personally, e.g. securities law; patent, trademark and copyright law; matrimonial, personal injury, criminal law etc. so that I can assist a client in satisfying all their legal needs even if I am not the appropriate attorney to handle them myself. I also have a group of assistants, including other attorneys, who back me up on an ad hoc basis when I need them. This enables me to punch above my weight when needed.
What are your strengths and style?
Intellect, conceptual and strategic skill, compassion, commitment to a cause, giving it priority over my personal financial interests, diplomacy, ferocity, fun and laughter.
Personal Interests:
Privacy outside of my professional activities and clientèle to which no one has access.
Fax
(845) 353-6934
Office Hours
Monday through Friday by appointment only.
Emergency After Hours
Yes
Fixed-Price Services and Fees
Negotiated fixed price services are possible, for certain transactions. Normally, for litigation matters of uncertain scope and duration, this is not practical. Rarely, but for a good cause (or a good case), my office does contingency fee arrangements or "mixed" arrangements with either a partial fee and a partial contingency arrangement.
Hourly Rates
$300.
Free Initial Consultation?
Usually yes, for the purpose of introducing a matter. If the initial conference effectively provides all the legal advice a party needs, I request compensation, as a matter of fairness, but do not insist upon it without an advance written agreement.
Typical Retainer
Hourly rate at $300/hr plus disbursements at cost, with an advance retainer reflecting nature of future work.
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