Area of Practice: Land Use & Community Law Mr. Lester began his career in the public sector in 1978 by performing public service. He created a full time pre-paid legal service program for students at the State University of New York at Albany. In that capacity, as the first full time lawyer on the Albany Campus, he won a landmark case that gave students the right to vote in their college communities. This Court decision, Auerbach v. Kinley, has had a direct impact upon increasing the college student vote in local, legislative and congressional races throughout New York State. Jack Lester initiated legal service programs modeled on the Albany program across New York concentrating on the State University and City University of New York. Campuses that benefited included SUNY Purchase, SUNY New Paltz. In the City University System, the Campuses that benefited were Hunter College, Medger Evers College, Borough of Manhattan Community College, City College of the City of New York, Baruch College and LaGuardia Community College. From 1986-1989, Mr. Lester worked as a prosecutor in the Office of the Queens County District Attorney. He prosecuted drug crimes and helped form the anti-bias unit in the City of New York. The unit prosecuted violent crimes that were motivated by racial, religious, gender or sexual orientation bias. This unit was formed in the aftermath of the infamous Howard Beach racial attack. Mr. Lester began his own law practice in 1990 and also served as Counsel in the New York State Senate. His practice has attracted tenant groups and neighborhood associations spanning the entire State of New York, in every borough of the City of New York and the surrounding suburbs. Mr. Lester has won landmark decisions in the areas of voting rights, parkland preservation, preventing illegal rent increases and environmental rights for neighborhood associations. Mr. Lester served as a member of Community Board # 8 in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Chairing the East 86th Street Task Force. He also served as a member of the Judicial Nominating Convention and the Housing Court Advisory Committee, playing a critical role in the selection of Judges in New York City. Mr. Lester is currently chairman of the Center for Research, Regional Education and Outreach based in SUNY New Paltz. This is an organization analyzing and proposing policy initiatives pertaining to government reform, the environment, land use and the fair administration of justice in the Hudson Valley. Mr. Lester earned his B.A. from SUNY New Paltz in 1974 and received his J.D. from New York Law School in 1977.

Ariel Lett, Esq. is the Managing Attorney of Lett Law. Mr. Lett brings broad experience to the Firm. Prior to founding Lett Law, Mr. Lett practiced at large and small defense firms for several years.. While there, he was able to gain a firm understanding of how insurance companies work, how they think, and how they operate. He brings this experience to Lett Law, in order to work most effectively for you: The People. He will make sure that you are not taken advantage of through Bad Faith insurance companies. In addition to his law firm experience, Mr. Lett also served as a federal law clerk for the Honorable Darrin P. Gayles of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. As a federal law clerk, Mr. Lett evaluated and managed many cases, including drafting numerous orders and opinions that decided complex procedural and substantive legal issues. Mr. Lett also has litigation experience in trade secret and non-compete law. Mr. Lett earned his Juris Doctor from Michigan State University College of Law where he was a Trustee Full-Tuition Scholarship recipient. While in law school, he won a national championship in the Thurgood Marshall Mock Trial Competition and several personal honors and awards in Moot Court & Trial Advocacy. He also served as an Associate Editor of the Michigan State International Law Review. Additionally, Mr. Lett was on the Michigan State Arbitration team where he won a regional championship. Mr. Lett completed an internship for the Honorable Victoria A. Roberts of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

Richard H. Levenstein is a shareholder at Nason Yeager. He practices in the area of complex commercial, civil litigation, physician and medical staff representation. Mr. Levenstein represents clients with business disputes, including actions arising from contracts or torts; his practice also has a heavy concentration in representing individual physicians, professional medical practices and the physician leadership of organized medical staffs around the State. He has successfully challenged the policies of major hospitals, and has won several substantial victories that have shaped the law to protect physicians and medical staffs. Mr. Levenstein is a Board Certified Business Litigation Lawyer and a Florida Supreme Court Certified Circuit Civil Mediator. He represents clients in state and federal court, and in administrative proceedings. Originally from the Bronx, New York, Mr. Levenstein earned his Bachelor’s Degree in 1973 from Tulane University in New Orleans, and earned his Juris Doctor in 1976 from Tulane University Law School. He has practiced in the State of Florida since 1977, and has experience both as a sole practitioner and as a partner in several major firms. He practiced in Boca Raton for 18 years, before relocating to Martin County. In addition to his legal work, Mr. Levenstein is the founding President of the Justice Major B. Harding American Inn of Court and former President of the Martin County Bar Association. He has served on several Florida Bar Committees, and serves on the Board of many national organizations including the American Inns of Court Foundation, The Lawyers Committee of the National Center for State Courts and the American Judicature Society. He is deeply committed to educating the public about the importance of a fair and impartial judiciary, and trains lawyers and judges around the Country how to do so, through the Our Courts America initiative. Mr. Levenstein is also a Supreme Court Certified Circuit Civil Mediator, serves as Adjunct Professor of Healthcare Law at Tulane University Law School and a lecturer at Tulane University Medical School.

President Sherry Levin Wallach is the Deputy Executive Director of the Legal Aid Society of Westchester County and the 2022-2023 President of the New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) which is the largest state voluntary bar association in the United States. Levin Wallach concentrates her practice on criminal defense. She has also practiced in the areas of medical malpractice defense, plaintiff personal injury, estate planning, probate and estate administration, real estate and general civil litigation. She has practiced in both the state and federal courts. In her years in private practice, she served on both the Westchester and Putnam County Assigned Counsel panels including the felony and homicide panels in Westchester, which provide criminal defense for those who cannot afford an attorney. In 2022, Levin Wallach established the New York State Bar Association’s Task Force on Emerging Digital Finance & Currency and focused her efforts on the impact of Web3, Metaverse, blockchain technology, crypto currency and the Law. That same year, she was appointed to the Advisory Board for the New York University’s Metaverse Collaborative. Levin Wallach has presented on this topic for the NYU School of Professional Studies Metaverse Collaborative, the University of Florence, and the Barcelona Bar Association and the New York State Bar Association. During her Presidency of the New York State Bar Association, Levin Wallach also established Task Forces of the Modernization of Criminal Practice, Mental Health & Trauma Informed Representation, The U.S. Territories and the Ethics of Local Public Sector Lawyering. She began her career as an assistant district attorney of Bronx County. Levin Wallach then took a position as an associate at the law firm of McAloon & Friedman, PC, where she handled medical malpractice defense. She went on to be a principal at her law firm Wallach & Rendo, LLP for the next 14 years until becoming of counsel to both Bashian Law (formerly Bashian & Farber), and Brown Hutchinson. Levin Wallach is co-founder of the NYSBA Young Lawyers Section Trial Academy, an annual program offering five days of intensive trial training. She continued to serve as the program’s faculty organizer, team leader and lecturer. At the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic, she assisted the NYSBA CLE Department on expanding the Trial Academy to have a series of virtual lectures on trial practice that run live from June to December and then chaired its 2021 inaugural Virtual Trial Academy. In 2022, Levin Wallach has assisted the NYSBA staff and program chairs in returning the program to it’s live format and bringing it to Syracuse University’s School of Law. A former chair of the Criminal Justice and Young Lawyers Sections, Levin Wallach served as NYSBA secretary for four terms, was a vice president from the Ninth Judicial District to the Executive Committee, and four years as a Member-at-Large on the Executive Committee. She chaired and co-chaired the Membership Committee for seven years and co-chaired the Task Force on Incarceration Release Planning and Programs where she chairs the Supervision subcommittee of the Task Force on Parole Reform. Levin Wallach serves on the Committee on Professional Discipline, the Committee on Mandated Representation, the Committee on Immigration Representation, and is a former chair of the Resolutions. She is also a member of the NYSBA Women in the Law Section, Criminal Justice Section, Trial Lawyers Section, LGBTQ Law Section and the Torts, Insurance, and Compensation Law Section. ? Levin Wallach serves as a Delegate to the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates and has successfully brought resolutions to its floor on Equal Treatment for the People of the U.S. Territories which urges the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule the Insular Cases, establishment of a War Crimes Tribunal to address the War Crime of Aggression in response to the war in Ukraine, and urging the courts nationwide to adopted an LGBTQ Bench Card to ensure all people are treated with respect in our nations courts. Levin Wallach coached the Pace Law School Mock Trial Team for two years before beginning her term as NYSBA’s President. She has taught at the National Institute of Trial Advocacy at Hofstra University School of Law and coached and judged high school, college and law school mock trial competitions across New York State. She organizes and lectures at continuing legal education programs for NYSBA, New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, New York State Defenders Association, SOMOS, New York University School of Professional Studies, University of Florence, Fordham Law School, New York University School of Law, Barcelona Bar Association, UIA Conference of International Lawyers, Virgin Islands Bar Association, and Westchester County Bar Association on the topics including Web3 and the metaverse, trial advocacy, mental health and trauma informed representation, attorney well-being, criminal and civil trial practice, ethics, women in the law, forensic science, non-lawyer ownership, the U.S. Territories, and DWI. Levin Wallach authored a chapter on DWI defense, “Best Practices for Defense Attorneys in Today’s DWI Cases,” in Inside the Minds: Strategies for Defending DWI Cases in New York, as well as articles on criminal justice issues, attorney well-being, technology and the law and trial practice which have been published in the New York Law Journal, the New York Bar Journal, the Westchester County Bar Journal, The New York State Defenders Association and the New York State Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section. Levin Wallach earned her Juris Doctorate from Hofstra University School of Law (now the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University) and her undergraduate BBA from George Washington University.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Law Alan S. Levine, Esq. is the founding Partner of Levine and Associates and founding co-partner of Addiction Recovery Legal Services, LLC. He has been a member in good standing of The Florida Bar and the United States District Court, Southern District of Florida, since 1990. Mr. Levine handles complex nursing home abuse, wrongful death and personal injury litigation throughout the country. He has litigated, resolved and obtained judgments in the six and seven figure range. He has successfully appeared before the Supreme Courts of Florida and Nevada. As a Florida Marchman Act attorney, he personally represented thousands of individuals and families in litigation seeking involuntary treatment for loved ones refusing to help them selves. Mr. Levine has participted in drafting changes of the Marchman Act law to benefit all individuals seeking to save the life of family and friends suffering with drug addiction. He is a well known Marchman Act expert, litigator and lecturer.