Practice Areas

Practice Areas
People
Technology
Legal Project Management
Value

Itkowitz & Harwood has a wide-ranging litigation practice, with a thematic core of real property related matters. We handle complex trials (jury and non-jury) and appeals in both State and Federal Courts, including Bankruptcy Court. I&H is a sophisticated boutique that serves commercial clients. Our clients expect as much from us as they would from a large firm. Indeed, the quality of our work rivals that of any firm - large or small.


Illustrations by Elke Reva Sudin

The Accomplishments section of the site provides the full text of hundreds of decisions won by I&H over the last three decades, each introduced by a brief case synopsis, often with links to press and video. Sometimes we present related decisions as a series, thus telling interesting litigation stories. Many of these decisions established principles of law. All of them achieved superior results for our clients. Not every victory, however, results in a written decision - see a sample list of excellent settlements that I&H has obtained for its clients.

I&H also has a transactional real estate practice. I&H handles: purchases and sales of commercial and residential real property and cooperatives, including multi-million dollar deals; commercial leasing, for both landlords and tenants; and private lending transactions.

I&h handles disputes involving:

I&H also has a transactional real estate practice.

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People

I&H is currently a team of fifteen attorneys.

Partners

Partners Jay Itkowitz and Donald Harwood are seasoned litigators, with extensive experience in both the legal profession and the business world, who bring a scholarly and strategic approach to solving our clients' problems. Jay and Donald have extensive experience in both the legal profession and the business world. Founding partner Jay Itkowitz has tried hundreds of jury and non-jury cases to verdict in State and Federal Court.

Michelle Maratto has been practicing in the area of complex residential and commercial landlord and tenant law in the City of New York for over fifteen years. Ms. Maratto is a frequent contributor to legal publications and continuing legal education panels and she is currently co-authoring the New York State Bar Association's New York Commercial Landlord and Tenant Law and Procedure Book, due out in 2012.

Please view the extensive Teaching and Publishing section of the site, to see how prolific we are in our fields of practice.

Associates

Anyone who has run a business knows that the world is a haystack. Finding the best people in your field to work for you is often like trying to find the needles in that haystack. At I&H we find those needles - the best entry-level associates. Currently: seven of our nine associates were cum laude, two were magna; three were on moot court; seven were on journals at their schools, two were on their law reviews, one was published; their law schools were Cardozo, Brooklyn, Fordham, Columbia, University of Minnesota, University of Maryland, and Vanderbilt. Many speak second languages, including: Spanish, Kannada, Armenian, French, Arabic, and Mandarin. One is a United States Chess Federation rated chess master, one is an accomplished playwright whose work has been staged in Chicago and New York, and one spent three years in the Peace Corps.

How do we find them? We work unusually hard at recruitment, using a nine-stage hiring system developed over many years. Most small firms simply do not invest the significant time and money in recruitment that I&H does. You can read more about it in our extensive Careers section of the site.

Why do we work so hard at recruitment of entry-level lawyers? Young associates matter. They can and should be integral to a firm's delivery of superior client service in a value-driven model. Large firms hire many first year associates, but few will have careers in Big Law. For large firms - the associate's first few years are the interview process. Indeed, this is why so many large firm first-years complain that their work is insubstantial. When a client pays a large firm for summer or entry level associate hours, the client is paying for that firm to decide whether or not that associate is one of the few worth keeping. At I&H, we already know that the associate working on your matter is a keeper.

How do we attract and retain lawyers with options? Talented new lawyers choose I&H because law is an apprentice profession. At I&H, a new attorney is truly an apprentice. An associate gets more supervised experience and training at I&H than they would almost anywhere else. Our salaries and benefits are very competitive, and we are consistently adding new enhancements to the quality of our daily work life.

New Partners and Of Counsels

I&H is cultivating new young leadership. Our infrastructure being solid, we have been expanding our practice by incorporating energetic, experienced lateral attorneys, whose practice areas complement our own. In 2011 I&H added three "under 40" of-counsel/partners. Daniel Spitalnic brings us a hotel and hospitality law dimension, Genevieve Salvatore is a construction law expert, and Craig Lanza is doing cutting edge work in foreclosure.

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Technology

I&H successfully competes in the sophisticated litigation arena because we marry carefully selected people with the best tools. The technology at I&H is excellent -- truly as good as you will find at any firm, of any size, anywhere. Each I&H team member has a state-of-the-art desk top, operating system, and a Blackberry, and is supported by a team of top-notch technologists. I&H employs seamlessly integrated practice management software, document management software, and document generation software, which allows the firm to be a "paperless" office. I&H is a fully e-discovery capable firm, deploying the same high-level software utilized by most Am-Law-100 Firms and the United States Department of Justice. I&H litigated one of the foundational cases on e-discovery sanctions in New York State Court.

I&H does not have technology for technology's sake, rather we have good stuff that works and makes life easier. Our experience has always been that the technology pays for itself by helping us efficiently provide excellent service to our clients. Most small firms simply do not invest the significant time and money in technology that I&H does. We also have a distinct advantage over large firms when it comes to technology. When a large firm decides to roll out a new piece of technology or an upgrade, it has to do so for hundreds of people in multiple locations. In contrast, I&H is far more nimble when it comes to incorporating new technological initiatives, giving the firm the freedom to experiment and innovate with its technology.

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Legal Project Management

At I&H we manage our cases via a robust Legal Project Management ("LPM") protocol. LPM helps us to:

Project Management, in general, is the process of planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling a project. Project Management is classically the stuff of manufacturing, construction, and technology development. When Project Management principles are brought to bear on the practice of law, you get LPM.

Many firms resist LPM. They assert that there is too much uncertainty in litigation to manage a legal case like a project. To that we at I&H say -- Lawyers do not have a corner on unforeseen negative events. Construction, manufacturing and tech can be subject to bad weather, labor problems, supply chain issues, and adverse legislation. In these fields they know that good project management helps ease the impact of the unexpected. Lawyers need to catch up. The unpredictability of litigation is exactly the reason that LPM is so necessary.

LPM helps lawyers think like and better serve business people. Practicing law effectively requires more than just researching, writing and arguing in court. Winning the case does the client no good if the legal fees associated with prevailing outmatch the recovery garnered by the victory. All the research in the world will be meaningless to the client if the lawyers cannot effectively communicate and present a risk assessment matrix that the client can really use to make a decision. And the best legal writing does the client no good if internal deadlines are not imposed and heeded so that the work product is approved by all key players in a timely fashion.

At I&H we are excited about our innovative Legal Project Management system and are eager to discuss it more with clients and potential clients.

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Value

I&H provides the client with all the advantages explained above - top people, technology, and project management - yet our rates are far lower than our competitors, and the value we deliver to the client is unmatched. The best minds and technology, coupled with innovative project management in a boutique setting, produces better results in less time with less cost.

In addition, I&H is led by sensible business people who keep our second biggest item of overhead (i.e. rent) low. We are located across the street from the Federal and State Courthouses. This not only makes for an effortless commute to court, it provides a price per square foot for our real estate that is a fraction of what we would pay in Midtown or the Financial District. Those savings accrue to the benefit of our clients.

I&H is the firm for businesses that seek representation by an experienced and innovative law firm, with a proven track record of delivering value to sophisticated commercial clients.

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