Christine Thea Rubinstein, Esq.

Practice

Christine Thea Rubinstein is the founding attorney of The Law Offices of Christine Thea Rubinstein & Associates P.C. Her practice spans litigation, estate and elder law, real estate and commercial matters — a combination that reflects how these issues arrive in real families rather than how they are cataloged in a directory.

The core of the practice is estate planning and elder law: wills, revocable and irrevocable trusts, powers of attorney and health care proxies, Medicaid asset protection planning, and the long-term-care questions that follow a diagnosis. Around that core sit the matters that so often accompany it — probate and estate administration, disputes among beneficiaries and fiduciaries, foreclosure and reverse-mortgage problems, debt and bankruptcy, and the sale or transfer of Long Island real estate.

Background in commercial finance

Before her current practice, Mrs. Rubinstein served as lead counsel to an international commercial mortgage fund. That work involved the lender’s side of loan documents, servicing, defaults and workouts.

It is unusual background for an estate and elder law practice, and it turns out to be useful. When a client arrives with a reverse-mortgage due-and-payable notice, a servicer that will not speak to the executor, or a payoff statement that does not reconcile, the questions the firm asks are informed by having sat on the other side of that table.

Public service and community involvement

• Suffolk County Senior Citizens Advisory Committee — appointed by Suffolk County legislators to serve on the committee advising on issues affecting older county residents.
• “Estate Law Exposé” — host of the estate law radio program broadcast on WOR 710 AM and iHeart Radio, explaining planning and probate issues to a general audience. The show ran as a weekly call-in program; all 34 episodes are archived on this site.

How Mrs. Rubinstein works with clients

Clients tend to arrive at one of two moments: well ahead of a problem, or in the middle of one. The approach differs.

Planning clients get a document-driven review. What exists, what it says, how the assets are actually titled, and where the plan on paper diverges from the plan in the client’s head. The most common finding is not a missing document — it is a document that was signed and then never implemented.

Clients in a crisis get triage first. What is the deadline, what is the legal status of the person and the property, and what has to happen this week. Strategy comes after the facts are pinned down, because in foreclosure, Medicaid and estate matters the calendar is frequently the binding constraint.

Practice areas

• Estate planning — wills, trusts, incapacity documents, trust funding and tax coordination
• Elder law and Medicaid planning — nursing home and community Medicaid, asset protection trusts, crisis planning
• Probate, estate administration and estate litigation — Surrogate’s Court practice, fiduciary guidance and disputes
• Foreclosure defense and reverse mortgages
• Bankruptcy and debt relief
• Real estate law
• Business planning and succession