A practical firm for complicated situations

A firm organized around how problems actually arrive

Most law firm websites are organized the way law schools organize courses: estates over here, real property over there, debtor–creditor down the hall. Clients do not arrive that way. They arrive with a house, a parent, a notice in the mail and a deadline they only half understand.

The Law Offices of Christine Thea Rubinstein & Associates P.C. is built around that reality. The practice areas the firm keeps — estate planning, elder law and Medicaid, probate and estate litigation, foreclosure and reverse mortgages, bankruptcy and debt, real estate, and business succession — are the ones that keep showing up together in the same family’s file.

What the firm does differently

The documents come first

Before recommending a strategy, the firm reads what already exists: the recorded deed, the mortgage and any riders, the beneficiary designation forms, the prior will or trust, the court papers, the servicer correspondence. A surprising share of client problems turn out to be document problems — a trust that was signed but never funded, a deed that put a child on title and created a tax and creditor exposure nobody intended, a power of attorney that expired at death right when the family needed it.

Issue spotting across practice lines

A Medicaid plan that ignores the reverse mortgage on the house is not a plan. A foreclosure defense that ignores the fact that the borrower died two years ago and no one opened an estate is not a defense. The firm looks for the adjacent problem, because the adjacent problem is usually what runs the clock out.

Written next steps

Clients leave a meeting knowing what they are supposed to do, what the firm is going to do, and what date matters. Where a document checklist helps, they get one.

Coordination, not territory

Where a matter involves an accountant, financial advisor, geriatric care manager, real estate broker or title company, the firm works with them rather than around them. Tax computation, in particular, belongs with the client’s accountant; the firm’s job is to make sure the legal structure and the tax advice are describing the same transaction.

Who the firm serves

• Families planning ahead — a first estate plan, a plan that has gone stale, or a plan that needs to survive a second marriage, a business, a disabled child or a house in another state.
• Adult children in a crisis — a parent has had a stroke, or a care facility is asking questions the family cannot answer.
• Executors, administrators and trustees — people who have been handed a legal job they did not train for and are personally accountable for doing right.
• Beneficiaries who suspect an estate or trust is not being handled properly, and want to know what they are entitled to see.
• Homeowners facing default, foreclosure, or a reverse mortgage that has become due.
• People carrying debt who need an honest comparison rather than a sales pitch for whichever product the caller happens to sell.
• Buyers, sellers and owners of Long Island real estate, including inherited, trust-owned and co-owned property.
• Business owners whose company is a significant part of the estate and whose operating agreement has never been read against the will.

Where the firm practices

The headquarters is in East Setauket, in the Three Village area of the Town of Brookhaven, with a satellite office in Hampton Bays available by appointment for clients on the South Fork and East End. The firm serves Suffolk and Nassau counties and, depending on the matter, Queens, Kings and the surrounding New York City area. Surrogate’s Court matters are most often in Riverhead for Suffolk County and Mineola for Nassau County.