CASE RESULTS

Attorney Larry Margolin was hired to represent a father who was falsely charged with striking his 18-year old daughter.  After a hearing, Attorney Margolin succeeded in getting the Petition and Temporary Order of Protection dismissed after a strong cross-examination that revealed the daughter’s petition and testimony were not credible.  The cross-examination brought out there was no physical injury or bruising to the daughter, no photographs of any bruise, no medical report and the note the daughter wrote to the father the next morning made no mention of the father striking her.

The Margolin Law Firm represented a father in Nassau County Family Court against the mother’s petition that the father willfully violated a child support order.  In a case prior to COVID, the father had serious health issues and lost his employment.  Attorney Margolin commenced a petition seeking a downward modification.  The mother opposed any downward modification.  After a hearing, Attorney Margolin obtained a downward modification for one third less and reached a settlement for the father to pay a small monthly payment for the arrears.

The father, who lived out of State, had an order providing he have visitation with his child for the Summer.  When the mother refused to turn over the child after the last day of school, the father retained Attorney Margolin.  Attorney Margolin filed two motions seeking enforcement and the immediate turnover of the child to him.  When the mother did not appear in Court, Attorney Margolin obtained a warrant of arrest against the mother and was able to get the police to serve the warrant.  When the mother appeared before the Judge, the Court ordered that the mother immediately turn over the child to the father.

Attorney Larry Margolin was hired to represent a mother where the father denied paternity of their child.  Attorney Margolin commenced a paternity proceeding against the father and obtained an order for the father and child to submit to a genetic marker test to determine paternity.  When the father refused to submit to the test, Attorney Margolin filed a motion for a default judgment against the father, drawing an inference that if the father had taken the test, it would be most favorable to the mother, and granting an order that the issues be deemed resolved in the mother’s favor holding the father was the child’s father.  The father submitted to the paternity test and the Court issued an order of paternity.  Based upon the father’s obstructionist tactics and lack of good faith, Attorney Margolin brought a motion seeking an award of attorney’s fees and disbursements, which the Court granted.  Attorney Margolin commenced a petition for child support and obtained an order of sole custody to the mother on the first court appearance.

Attorney Larry Margolin was hired to represent a father who was removed from his Suffolk County home and his infant child because of a temporary stay away order of protection that his wife obtained ex parte.  At the first court conference for the case, which occurred three days after the father was served with the court papers, the mother asked that the father have very limited supervised visitation with their toddler with no overnight visits.  Attorney Margolin pointed out that the father denied the allegations, there was no allegation the father harmed or threatened anyone, and the basis for the petition was a simple argument about a failing marriage that did not rise to a family offense.  Over the wife’s objection, Attorney Margolin got the father an immediate unsupervised visitation schedule with overnights every other weekend and a weekday visit.  After the next conference, Attorney Margolin got the mother to withdraw the petition and drop the temporary OOP.

Attorney Larry Margolin was hired on the eve of trial to represent a father in Queens County Family Court.  His teenage child’s mother had passed away and the child’s maternal grandmother commenced two petitions seeking full custody and guardianship.  The father, who was the child’s natural father and sole surviving parent with a superior right to the care and custody of his daughter, had represented himself for nine months and was on the verge of losing custody of his daughter.  The grandmother’s counsel, the child’s counsel and the Magistrate appeared convinced the child wanted to live with the grandmother and it would be in her best interest to do so.  Not only did Attorney Margolin show the Court the false allegations in the two petitions, he showed the Court it was not applying the correct legal standard set forth in a leading Court of Appeals case, which was a two-part test, and the Court could not reach the second part “best interest of the child” standard unless the grandmother established the first part of the test.  Here, the Petition did not allege any basis for the first part of the test and there were no facts to support the first part of the test.  Attorney Margolin got the trial put over and then defeated the grandmother’s emergency motion seeking immediate custody of the child.  At the trial, Attorney Margolin made an opening statement that laid out the facts and relevant legal standards that the grandmother could not establish.  After the grandmother took the stand and Attorney Margolin objected to the entire line of questions that were irrelevant, the Court asked the grandmother to withdraw the Petition.  After the grandmother refused to withdraw the Petition, prior to the next trial date, Attorney Margolin filed an Order to Show Cause to dismiss the Petition without a hearing, which the Court granted.