Practice Areas
Business Counseling
At the Law Offices of Stephen R. Stern P.C. as a result of our decades of experience, we recognize that no detail is too small when counseling a client. We continually analyze every aspect of our clients' business procedures, recognizing that, in many cases, such seemingly trivial items as invoices, contract forms and other every day documents can form the basis for avoidable and expensive disputes because they do not recognize the nuances of the client's particular business. We are overwhelming sensitive to the nuances of the client's business and learn the client's business as if it were ours. We believe, at least in business, there is no such thing as "cookie cutter," and we strive to provide our clients with business documents that will enable them to go about their business seamlessly and without the interruptions cause by unclear or imprecise business forms. We also believe communication is the most important vehicle for effective and efficient representation and perpetually keep an open line and demand that we be available to our clients.
Of paramount importance to most clients because we also have an extensive and sophisticated transactional expertise and acute business acumen, we are able to bring a distinct business-related focus to our litigation strategy. Likewise, we are able, in many cases, to examine a potential business transaction from a litigator's point of view, and to counsel our clients to avoid pitfalls that a less varied or less experienced firm would overlook.
Mergers & Acquisitions
Our extensive representations in the corporate world starts with functioning as outside general counsel and as outside counsel to publicly held and closely held entities and has included mergers, acquisitions, asset and stock sales and purchases, joint ventures, private placements, later-stage growth capital transactions, leveraged buy outs and recapitalizations and we have been involved in numerous fields including secured lending and borrowing, financing, publishing, advertising, licensing, merchandising, distribution, vitamins and dietary supplements, manufacturing, franchising, entertainment, employment, union disputes, real estate acquisition/sale/leasing, real estate development, commercial artists, trademarks, copyrights, contract law, etc..
Real Estate
Our numerous representations in the real estate area includes acquisitions, sales, development, financing, commercial leasing and other matters relating to residential homes, office buildings, regional shopping centers, condominiums and cooperative housing, convenience stores, gas stations, franchise restaurants and retail stores, public storage facilities, triple-net lease tenancies, subleasing and brokerage agreement. The firm also counsels both borrowers and lenders in connection with workouts and restructuring transactions.
Litigation
The Law offices of Stephen R. Stern P.C. decades of experience has included the representation of sophisticated clients in all aspects of complex and non-complex commercial and business as well as real estate and estate litigation, both in New York Federal and State courts, and federal and state courts throughout the country and internationally. We have formed a network with out of state attorneys with whom we are able to coordinate our efforts and who are sufficiently confident in our abilities to move us to practice pro hoc vice in State and Federal court in their jurisdictions.
We also have represented clients in a wide variety of matters, including common law business disputes in contract or in tort, arbitrations and regulatory matters involving various agencies of the Federal Government such as FTC and FDA and inquiries from the United States Attorney and the FBI.
Our representations have also included client disputes in a wide variety of contracts, real estate, estate, licensing, employment, matrimonial and other civil law matters as well as criminal matters.
The hallmark of our involvement in each of these areas is our honed skill of taking great pride in making the complex and subtle procedural and strategic decisions that so frequently mark the difference between obtaining a successful resolution for a client and a less favorable disposition. Because of our size, we are able to provide our clients with personalized attention that is so necessary in the resolution of these matters. Personalized attention that lost in our world or electronic advance but attention that most clients not only demand but seek out to insure they know who they are being represented by. As a result of our tens of year of such extensive and eclectic experience, we are able to meet the challenges posed by all cases in the foregoing disciplines.
It is our philosophy that the best way to succeed at litigation is to avoid it. The best way to avoiding litigation is to plan for it.
Arbitration/Mediation
We have frequently represented clients in arbitrations/mediations and have been involved in hundreds of arbitrations/mediations throughout that Unites States and internationally in each of the legal areas detailed above. In addition to the traditional arbitration of disputes involving the members of business or professional entities (the so-called "business divorce") we also have represented business and commercial clients in the arbitration of issues that were once solely litigated in a court, including disputes involving breach of contracts of all types.
We have also arbitrated nearly every type of contract dispute, intellectual property disputes, employment, restrictive covenants and discrimination controversies, licensing matters, and regulatory matters relating to FTC & FDA.