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Welcome to Sullivan and Sullivan

To do personal injury in New York is a specialization. You shouldn’t be the guy who hangs a lawyer banner and says, “I do it all.” You know what that means? You’re not an expert in any of those things. When you are injured, your rights should be compensated by excellent attorneys, which is what we do. We’ve had people who have lost their careers. We’ve had athletes who can never play their sport again. A father with six kids, now there’s a widow, and there’s no one to provide. You have rights to your lost wages. You have rights to pain and suffering. We are very good at getting numbers at trial, mediation, arbitration, and in settlement, and we protect your rights like they’re our own. We know every client personally. Every client has my cell phone number, calls me on the regular, texts me on the regular. Every client we’ve been with will tell you that the biggest factor in why they love us is because we’re available 24/7. If you don’t know if it’s a case, why not ask the experts? Not knowing is a horrible thing. If it is a case and we feel it’s something we can do for you, we’re going to take the ball and run. But if it’s not a case, you’re going to sleep easier knowing. It costs nothing to find out. Give the law firm a call. 516-746-6446.

Why Choose Us

You need heart surgery, and you go and you meet the head surgeon at that hospital. And he tells you when the procedure is and what they’re going to do. And you show up on the day of your surgery, and it’s somebody two years out of medical school who’s performing the surgery. That is what happens in the larger law firms. I’ve spent two, three, four, sometimes five years working that case up with this client together hand in hand. They don’t ever have to wonder if someone else was doing the work, if the work wasn’t getting done. I cannot tell you, and I won’t name the firms, how many times people who have been in the big law firms have called my law firm, telling me nobody will call them back. None of that happens here. It’s impossible because if you could pull any file off that wall and name a name, just give me a name, Lester first, I will tell you exactly what that accident is, exactly who that person is, exactly what their family is, exactly what their injuries are. There’s a lot of illegitimate cases in our business. We don’t take that. We don’t want the volume of cases, even if it may make us a few more bucks. Therefore, I can focus all of my attention on every case I take, ’cause I know they’re legitimate, real cases with real injuries that have really, really impacted people’s lives.

Our Process

Let’s assume we’re dealing with a car accident. Let’s assume somebody for easy conversation lost their left leg in this car accident. Okay, that injury’s worth what to you? Four or five million, eight million, okay. If defendant has a $25,000 policy, that case ends in a week. But for example, if somebody had a good UM like I do, I would then be going after my insurance company and there’s $5 million there. Now you’re in for a longer game. So you call the law firm, You speak with me and/or Brian. You then get our cell number. We come to you. If you can’t come to us, we sign the case up. I get that into suit right away. Other law firms don’t. And then we do a little bit of discovery and we file what’s called a request for a preliminary conference. And then that basically, the judge tells us to come in and it lays out the skeleton of the case. You will then have depositions, which we will prepare you for. And then we hopefully settle it. 95% of the cases these days settle, but we like trying the cases. So if they don’t offer enough money and you wanna go ahead to trial and swing the bat, we are happy to do that for you and we are good at it. And that’s what we specialize in.

Introducing the Accident Buddy

A lot of family and friends, their younger driver children, 17, 18 years old, were getting in car accidents and really not knowing what to do. Also, a lot of drivers will hit their head very hard and be concussed and do everything wrong after an accident. So what I came up with is the Accident Buddy. What this does, it’s a laundry list of exactly what you should be doing if you are in an accident. It protects your rights legally. It protects you health-wise. You put it in your glove box and you forget about it. If you feel you don’t need one, you’re a great driver. Remember, the good drivers never cause accidents. They get into them all the time when somebody blows the stop sign, and especially for younger drivers. So I found that all of my friends who have kids who are 17 and 18 years old are asking me to send them more. I hope you never need it, but if you do, the law firm information is there, and you give us a ring, and we’ll protect your rights legally.

New York's Resource for Hit and Run Suits

If you get into an accident and that other driver takes off, first of all, normally that driver is either under the influence, has no insurance, or horrible insurance. You’re not gonna get somebody with a million-dollar insurance who’s completely sober, leaving the scene in the accident. So what you should do first is see if there are any witnesses, and see if they got the license plate. Check around the stores if it’s in commercial area, see if there’s video camera, get the license plate, okay? If you can’t do that, New York State has a fund set up, MV Act, where basically there’s a $25,000 you can go after for somebody who’s done that. That’s not that much. So again, the third step, and I urge everybody, please, this is where the uninsured, underinsured insurance comes in. You can then turn to your own, like, for example, I have, because I’m a personal injury lawyer, I have a $5 million UN-UM policy, and I would then call my own insurance company and let them know that this other car took off but I still have five million dollars to go after from my own insurance policy. So first of all try to get the license plate. Second, the state provides a $25,000 recovery, which we would be able to get for you and third, get that UM and UN insurance.

How Long Do I Have to Bring a Personal Injury Suit?

Normally, let’s say 90% of the time, you have three years from the date of the accident, which is good because sometimes we get cases where somebody’s lost a leg. Okay, that person’s seriously injured under New York. Sometimes the people don’t know and they think they’re okay. And then six months later, they find out they have nine herniated discs and the therapy wasn’t helping and they need spinal surgery. So you have three years from the date of the accident, unless it involves a car that’s owned by a municipality. So the point is call the law firm immediately. It costs you nothing.

The truth about Independent Medical Examiners

I’ve had clients that have seen over 60 doctors and have had therapy for years and 25 surgeries. These are your treating doctors. We go through the whole case. And again, this is if there’s a lot of insurance or else they would have offered the policy. Then at some point, you go to see one of their doctors. And every client I had will tell you, they will walk in and it’s like a cattle call process. There’s 20 people in the room. I always tell them to write down the second and we don’t go with them. Some law firms do. I like to not go because I know it’s going to be seven minutes. And when we get to trial, the defense attorney is going to say, so you were there with your lawyer? No. And then I tell the client to write down the second that doctor starts examining him and the second it stops. It’s averaging five to seven minutes. So then at the time of trial, I’m going to say, doctor, how long did you see my client? I don’t know. And I’m going to say, well, I asked my client to write it down. You saw her for seven minutes. And you expect this jury to take your seven minutes over all these records of treatment and the testifying doctors. So we laugh when we hear independent medical examination. But of course, you have to go see one of the defense doctors.

What does it mean for NY to be a "no-fault" state?

The way I explain it to my clients is this: Without no fault, it would take forever to get your case through the court system. The statute at play is 5102B, and that’s called the Serious Injury Requirement. In order to bring and substantiate a claim in New York Supreme Court, you have to meet those requirements. So it has to be considered a serious injury under the law. And everything that doesn’t meet those requirements to be dealt through the no-fault system. Whether or not you hire an attorney for your accident, everyone needs to file no-fault right away. All you’re doing is alerting your insurance company of an accident and you get a no-fault claim number. That claim number, take to any doctor’s office, most any doctor’s office, and they will accept it and treat you. It’s so simple, but it also keeps all of the cases that don’t have those serious injuries that we need to meet that standard, it keeps them out of the Supreme Court. If they were in it, it would be so clogged up, it would take forever to get a case to try.

What you need to know about Nursing Home Negligence

Nursing home negligence is different than other negligence because you’re placing that loved one, that family member, in the care of the nursing home. Example of a case we had was a woman who lost basically all function. A new attendant at the nursing home gave her a piece of steak to eat that Andre the Giant couldn’t get down, and she choked from it and passed away. This woman was supposed to be fed things like Jell-O. Now, the defense attorney will say they were just feeding her; wrong you knew she was in there for certain conditions and you did not meet the level of care. So nursing home negligence is level of care case by case person because each person there is there for a different reason. Their experiences in those homes should be peaceful and it should be happy, hopefully, so if they end up injured in these places call the law firm. These nursing homes hold themselves to a standard of care and as we’ve all seen a lot of times they do not abide by it.

Outrageous Claims Debunked

I see a lot of commercials on TV and billboards, and they say the most ridiculous things. Sometimes it’s in small writing, and they say, “My lawyer got me 40 times more “than the insurance company offered.” They make it up. I mean it. It’s a complete hoax. The truth is you don’t have to make it up. Every single insurance company is going to try and lowball every single plaintiff with a legitimate injury. It’s gonna happen all day, every day. For any lawyer to say, “I just want you to know I got 40 times the amount the insurance company offered.” You might have got 40 times the first offer, but that’s how that works. We have several offers and several demands and several offers and demands and offers and demands, and they go back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. That’s how you negotiate. I’ve always found them to be sleazy, so I’m not going to make them myself. But the truth is this: there are negotiations that take place prior to trial. and the last one is at trial. Right after you pick that jury you get assigned a trial judge. That trial judge is going to spend at least a half a day, if not a full day, trying to settle that case before that trial starts. So whatever number, the last number that was put in front of you, the last offer that they made, okay, that you’ve turned down. They have to now get in front of the trial judge, tell them what that last offer was and why the case isn’t settled. Every single time that judge says, “Well, let’s see if we can get a little closer.” So, I don’t like to do the, “We got 40 times more, we got 100 times more, we got 20 times more the insurance companies offer,” because that’s a crock. If you just basically say that the insurance company kind of calls everybody and offers them between $2,000 and $10,000, they do do that. I mean, everyone will tell you who’s been involved, get a call, they’ll offer you a very small amount of money very quickly. So if you take the number, pick one out of pick two thousand or ten thousand and then you times it by whatever the verdict or whatever the settlement may be years later. Yes, technically, you can come up with that number, but it’s not real.

The Perils of Social Media

First off, don’t post on social media if you have a personal injury claim, okay? We actually had a case once where a father, his daughter was getting married. This man was horribly injured in a car accident. And at his daughter’s wedding, he got up to do the father’s daughter dance and then posted that on his Facebook. And the defense companies went wild with it. See, he’s fine. He can go back to work. If you have a case, do not post any physical activity on social media. They will look. Defendants, a lot of times, hire investigators. And if you post it on social media, they’re going to see it. If you don’t know whether or not you should, call us. Text it to me. I’ll let you know whether or not I think you should post it.

Case Study: Product Liability

Everybody knows those little children’s scooters, okay, that the kids ride on and you push with your foot. You know there’s a latch on it somewhere so you can raise and lower the level of the handlebars. That’s great. Children grow. Problem was, every other scooter had that latch to the side, in front, or with some foam around it. This scooter had the latch, a chunk of metal pointing at the child riding the scooter. The child hit a bump, fell, and the latch went through the child’s mouth and ripped his face in half from here up until his eye. That is a perfect example of a product liability case. That product was made inherently dangerous. We got that child a very, very good settlement. And something else you should know when you’re saying children, those awards sit in a bank account until the child turns 18, sometimes 21, and it earns interest. So that’s a fantastic thing, and we guide you through that process as well. We have an infant’s comp hearing with a judge to make sure he approves the settlement. And most of the time the judge says to our clients that the settlement was very, very high.

Success Stories

I can’t say the building, but this elevator, we say fell. Let’s say a cable snapped. And this person was horrifically injured. Defendants say that the elevator over sped, but it over sped for 30 floors. I can’t get into numbers, but let’s say it was between 10 and 20 million that it ended up settling for. Another example is in Manhattan recently. I won’t say what theater, but we had two clients where something happened in, they worked behind the scenes in that theater, and they were horribly injured. And they thought they only had a workers’ comp case. It’s not true. There were third party defendants in that case that were at fault for what happened to them. And we just settled that case for $5.6 million for them. We’ve been raised from our father and our grandfathers as trial attorneys. That’s all we do. So we’re going to fight for you. And we’re going to get you everything you deserve.

Types of Damage Awards

There are many types of damages. Mostly in our cases, we are going after pain and suffering. Second is loss of wages. In the beginning of my career, I had a very old client, a woman, so the defense attorney laughed and said there’s no lost wages, right? And it turns out she was from Russia and used to dance in the Bolshoi Ballet. And now she was teaching children on the Upper East Side at about $500 to $1,000 an hour per child. So when I told the defense attorney that this woman indeed had lost wages and that they were extremely high, you know, scared them a little bit, and we got her compensated. Third is, and it’s not all the time, but is lack of consortium. So if somebody is horribly injured and they’re married and that spouse’s life has changed dramatically, all they’re doing is taking care of them. If there’s no private relations anymore, all of that stuff, the spouse can then be compensated. It’s not all the time, but it does happen. Those are the main injuries in our field. Pain and suffering, loss of wages, and lack of consortium. You should also be noted that the loss of wages you will get taxed on that. But pain and suffering, zero taxes. So we’ve had cases where we’ve settled for 12 million dollars, and that’s eight million dollars to the client. That is literally like handing them a suitcase. There’s no taxing on pain and suffering injuries.

Uninsured & Underinsured Motorists

This is probably the most important thing that most people don’t know about. Most of the time we’re finding people have very good insurance if they get in an accident with somebody. But normally the person who blows the red light and hits you has horrible insurance or no insurance. And insurance companies are not your friends. They’re not our friends. And they never tell people that for a nominal amount, they can purchase what’s called uninsured, underinsured insurance. This protects your family, yourself, your loved ones. If that car that hits you has a $25,000 policy, for example, I settle that case, say the injuries are worth a million and the car that hit you has a $25,000 policy. After the attorney’s fees, you’re getting about 16,000 and change. For a nominal amount, you can get a $1 million uninsured, underinsured policy. And then after I get that $25,000 from the defense vehicle, I can then go to your own insurance and get the remaining 975,000 for your injuries. Nobody knows about this. So you need to call the law firm, ask us about it. We’ll tell you more about it, but it’s vital that you have it to protect you, your families, and your loved ones.

What Qualifies As a Serious Injury?

Anybody who’s been injured, who gets to the point where they call a lawyer, obviously feels that they’ve been seriously injured. But New York has a rule, and it’s basically called threshold. Your injuries need to clear that threshold for you to be able to bring a case in New York. A few examples of that are any fracture. You could fracture your pinky and then add on all of your other neck and back stuff. Loss of fetus, disfigurement. If there’s severe disfigurement, we’ve had clients that have gone through windshields. If you miss 90 out of the next 180 days of work, okay, that gets you past threshold. And then if the doctor says you have a permanent partial limitation of use of a body organ, member, function, or system, those are the injuries that New York requires for you to have to bring a personal injury lawsuit.

What To Do After An Accident

First things first, see if anybody’s injured, how badly, especially if you have passengers. Stop your car immediately and leave it where it is unless there’s a very dangerous traffic situation. The car should remain where it is until the police come. Make sure that you have the information of all parties involved in the accident. If it’s at an intersection, take pictures of the street signs, of the stop signs. If there are skid marks, take photos of any injuries you have. Also take photos of the accident scene. Damage to your vehicle, damage to the other vehicle, it shows points of impact. It helps greatly. You should call 911 immediately. A lot of times people don’t think they’re hurt. I’ve had 50 cases where somebody thought they were fine, adrenaline’s pumping, they don’t get in an ambulance, they go home, they’ve had a brain bleed and they did not know about and then they have an aneurysm. If you have any type of head injury, it is obvious that Your priority shouldn’t be to jump out of the car and take pictures and get everybody’s information. Don’t worry. There will be police reports. You need a police report. Call the police. If you’re injured or think you are, get into an ambulance. That ambulance report is crucial. If you go directly home, defense attorneys and the claim agents are going to say they didn’t even go to a hospital. It’s more important to worry and focus on someone’s health at all stages of the litigation than it is to focus on the renovation. So I always tell people, if you’re sharp enough after an accident, if you’re cognitively aware enough after an accident, call me right away, or grab your accident button. But if you’re not, don’t worry, don’t freak out. It will be fine. You call us days later, or whenever you’re out of hospital, or whenever your mind is clear, we will be able to put that scene back together through a myriad of ways.

Why Not Deal Directly With the Insurance Company?

What is the job of the insurance company’s employees? It is very, very simple. It is to save the insurance company as much money as possible. You don’t make billions and billions and billions of dollars every single year in profit for no reason. They are the big bad wolf every time, every day. They never change. It is our job to fight them. If you try to fight them, there are tricks they will use that you just don’t, you won’t see come. Don’t ever, ever get into an accident and then deal with the insurance company without a lawyer. It’s ridiculously crazy. Some people just want to put it behind them. And I understand exactly what it may be. Problem is, if you get an accident and you get a call from that insurance company two days later, and they’re trying to offer you $5,000 to make the case go away, it may sound nice to you at that moment, that day two. You need time to find out what your injuries really are, whether or not you’ll need surgery, and how are we going to treat these things. Don’t rush. There is no rush. Remember, the statute of limitations is three years. There’s no rush to ever settle with an insurance company without talking to a lawyer. First of all, we work on contingency fees, so it’s free. You know we’re on your side. You know they’re not on your side.

When Should I Call A Lawyer for a Workplace Accident?

Always call the lawyer. Okay, because if it is strictly a Workers’ Comp case, we’re gonna let you know. We also know some great Workers’ Comp attorneys if you need one. But a lot of times, I’ll give you an example, the case that happened in this theater, basically, something fell from about 60 feet above and landed on two gentlemen. The people that raised that metal object that high, that wasn’t their direct employer, but they were hurt while working. There’s an example of a third party who was involved in this, who was negligent with what they were supposed to do. We get very, very high verdicts on these cases a lot because oftentimes there’s a lot of insurance. So always call the law firm if you’re hurt at work. If you don’t have a case besides the workers’ comp, we’ll tell you. You’ll sleep better at night.

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