New York, NY Ingram Yuzek Gainen Carroll & Bertolotti, LLP, a 36-attorney law firm, is proudly celebrating the 30-year anniversary of its formation. Ingram is a collaborative and client-driven multi-disciplinary law firm  respected for providing exceptional legal services to its clients, large and small, in an economically sensible manner. 

It all began in 1989 when committed friends and founding partners, Samuel Ingram, Daniel Carroll, Larry Gainen, Dean Yuzek and Ernest Bertolotti* left a “big-law” New York City firm to start their own client-centered law practice. They started with just three associates (now senior partners, David Ebert, Warren Friss and Shane O’Neill) and various institutional clients which the firm is proud to continue to represent.

Looking back fondly on the early days, Larry Gainen reminisced, “I remember the first day we opened our doors and I shared one office with Dan and Dean (surrounded by optimism) in what must have resembled a bookie parlor.” 

While the accommodations may not have been what they were accustomed to after having spent time in “big law,” these friends and partners were determined to develop a truly client-centered law practice offering top-flight legal counsel without “big firm” attitude (or “big firm” rates). Their intent was to redefine the New York City law firm in the sense that their practice would not be about “your client” or “my client” but, rather, “our clients,” with all partners and associates working together cooperatively, without regard to who initiated the relationship. Daniel Carroll notes, “We’ve always focused on finding and retaining top talent. It has served us, and our clients, well.”

Ingram attributes its continued success to the dedication and collaboration of its partners, counsel, associates and loyal staff, and their unfettered ability to cultivate long-term client relationships (some spanning three decades) and to develop new (and lasting) client relationships each year. Warren Friss points out that, “A key to our success has been our ability to adapt to the constantly changing legal environment–without losing sight of our overall mission–being responsive, cost conscious and highly effective in our legal work.” Ingram is proud that many of its partners, attorneys and staff have been with the firm for decades, and that existing clients continuously refer new clients to the firm based on their own positive experiences.

The firm has been at the forefront of many notable cases and significant transactions. Ingram’s real estate attorneys deal extensively with a broad scope of transactions, nationally and internationally, with particular focus on New York-centric and nationwide office and retail leasing, multifamily, mixed use and industrial acquisition and disposition. Real estate partner Neal Weinstein praises the flexibility of the Real Estate Group, “From selling a 350-unit multifamily acquisition in California, to rent regulation issues on an eight-unit brownstone in Bushwick, to negotiating co-working office leases, to handling lease deeds in India, we get to help our clients through new challenges every day.” 

Ingram’s Construction and Design Group represents design professionals, developers and landowners in all aspects of development such as negotiating access rights among neighboring owners, negotiating professional contracts and helping clients balance the multitude of issues that naturally arise in construction in New York and beyond. Ingram’s flourishing Landlord-Tenant Group merges practical experience with a vast knowledge of the ever-changing rent regulations and complex procedural requirements affecting residential landlords and tenants in New York.

For the past 30 years, Ingram has successfully competed with the biggest of the “big-law” institutional firms and has been a standard-bearer for providing efficient and practical legal services. The key to Ingram’s success has been putting the needs of its clients above all else and the responsiveness and accessibility of the firm’s attorneys, at all levels, to its clients.

Ingram places a premium on teamwork, viewing each client relationship as the collective responsibility of the entire firm. The cooperation among Ingram’s attorneys across their primary practice areas:

• Real Estate Group chaired by Shane O’Neill; 
• Construction and Design Group chaired by Larry Gainen; 
• Landlord-Tenant Group chaired by Cory Weiss; 
• Commercial Litigation Group chaired by Dean Yuzek; and 
• Corporate and Business Group chaired by Warren Friss.

This is a hallmark of the firms continued success and has allowed Ingram to offer competitive service to clients as their needs have increased in a faster paced environment. 

Ingram has a fostered familial relationship among its attorneys and staff. The firm hosts various events each year to cultivate relationships among the Ingram extended family. A summer picnic where all employees and significant others, children and even grandchildren take the day to enjoy good food and softball, basketball, lawn games and a hotly contested bake-off. The annual holiday party is attended by all employees, their families and extended families where gifts are happily distributed to the children (and grandchildren) with the help of Ingram elves. 

Ingram has organically grown over the years resisting over-expansion and declining merger offers from various national firms through the years. While staying streamlined, Ingram has maintained national and international capabilities as a long-time member of the Legal Netlink Alliance, a global network of similarly mid-sized, general practice, member law firms with whom Ingram has forged long-standing relationships of trust and confidence, to the great benefit of its clients. Construction & Design partner, Melissa Billig, adds “In this manner, we are able to deliver the highest quality legal service on a consistent and personal basis.”

Ingram recently relocated to new offices with room to (selectively) grow at 150 East 42^nd St., 19^th floor, and is looking forward to the next 30 years!

* Ernie Bertolotti, Ingram’s co-founding partner passed away in December 1999. He was a pre-eminent attorney and a great partner and friend.