About the Attorney

Albert Goodwin, Esq. is a New York attorney with over 18 years of courtroom and appellate experience. He leads the Law Offices of Albert Goodwin, PLLC, a boutique practice based in Midtown Manhattan that handles appeals throughout New York City and the surrounding counties.

When you call our office during business hours, you speak directly with the lead attorney — not an associate, not an assistant, and not a call center. When you retain the firm, the lawyer who reads your record, writes your brief, and stands up at oral argument is the same lawyer you spoke with from the start. Appellate work is a writing-intensive, detail-driven discipline, and we believe it should not be handed off down a chain of junior attorneys.

What Appellate Advocacy Involves

Appeals require a different skill set than trials. There are no witnesses to cross-examine and no juries to persuade in real time. An appeal is decided on three things: the record of what happened in the court below, the written brief, and the oral argument before a panel of appellate judges. Success depends on close reading of the record, command of the controlling statutes and case law, and the ability to write a clear, persuasive, rule-compliant brief.

We handle appeals across the areas of New York practice where they most often arise:

• Civil appeals — money judgments, contracts, personal injury, and real property disputes.
• Surrogate's Court appeals — will contests, accountings, and fiduciary disputes.
• Family Court appeals — custody, support, and related orders.
• Federal appeals — appeals from the Southern District and Eastern District of New York to the Second Circuit.

We appear in the Appellate Division, First Department, the Appellate Division, Second Department, the Appellate Term, the New York Court of Appeals, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, representing both appellants seeking to overturn a decision and respondents defending one.

How We Work

Every appeal begins with an honest assessment. Most appeals are affirmed, and reversal rates are generally low — so before you spend money compiling a record and writing a brief, you deserve a candid view of your realistic chances, the applicable standard of review, and what is genuinely at stake. We would rather tell you an appeal is a long shot than take a case we do not believe in.

Once retained, we move quickly. Appellate deadlines are strict and often jurisdictional: in most cases, the notice of appeal must be filed within 30 days of service of notice of entry of the decision, and missing that deadline forfeits the right to appeal entirely. If you have just received an unfavorable decision, time is the most valuable thing you have. For a full explanation of what to expect, see The Appeals Process in New York.

Contact Albert Goodwin

The Law Offices of Albert Goodwin, PLLC is located in Midtown Manhattan and handles appeals from trial courts across Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island, Nassau County, Suffolk County, and Westchester County. To discuss whether an appeal makes sense in your case, contact us by phone at 212-233-1233 or by email at [email protected]. Because appellate deadlines are short, please reach out promptly.