Justice Lawrence Knipel joins Berger Fink LLP

Lawrence Knipel joins Jason Fink and David Berger. Photo courtesy of Berger Fink LLP

ADAMS STREET — The longest serving administrative judge in the Civil Division of the Kings County New York State Supreme Court, located at 360 Adams St., has joined a private law firm following his retirement. As one of the State Supreme Court’s most distinguished legal minds, Knipel was chosen by Berger Fink LLP to continue its “successful and continued expansion as New York’s boutique litigation law firm of choice.”

Widely recognized for both his erudite legal acumen and his successful tenure as Brooklyn Supreme Court’s longest serving administrative judge for civil matters, Knipel has spent almost three decades as a sitting New York justice, earning him a reputation for carefully creative yet uncompromising adherence to the principles of justice and the rule of law.

“We are exceedingly proud to welcome Justice Larry Knipel to our ranks,” said Managing Partner Jason Fink. “Our clients and also our associates will benefit immensely from his experience and understanding of both the judicial system as well as the administrative workings of our firm.”

Senior Partner David Berger added, “Justice Knipel’s choice to join our firm reflects the strength of our objectives as litigators coupled with our commitment to excellence in service.”

During his long term of service as a trial justice, as well as a presiding justice in the commercial division, Knipel rendered hundreds of judicial decisions on many areas of the law, including complex commercial matters, environmental conservation litigation and medical malpractice suits. He is a frequent lecturer on topics relating to commercial litigation, medical malpractice and trial practice.

Of his decision to join the firm, Knipel said, “Berger Fink is a premier commercial litigation firm, with an impressive track record and a number of highly regarded practitioners. As I enter private practice, I am excited to continue my work upholding the rules and tenets of the legal profession while embarking on a career advocating for clients’ best interests from the other side of the bench.”

Berger Fink LLP focuses its practice on resolving commercial business and real estate disputes for their clients. The firm’s achievements derive from its commitment to the individual causes of their clients coupled with their exceptional devotion to the development of creative solutions to difficult problems. The resolutions the attorneys at Berger Fink pursue are as unique as the problems brought to them by their clientele, and it shows in the results they produce.

About the partners

Many attorneys claim to understand and handle your real estate based dispute. David Berger has a proven track record of successfully representing a wide variety of real estate interests, drawing on his background both as a staff attorney for a governmental housing agency and as a commercial real estate investor throughout New York City. It is this unusual combination of real estate litigation and investment experience that enhances his transactional work, from closing complicated real estate deals to drafting mezzanine financing.

Berger epitomizes representation as it should be. With a good sense of humor and a broad yet detailed understanding of the intricacies of legal procedures, he exemplifies the rock-solid and creative work that Berger Fink LLP affords its clients.

For over two decades, he has successfully and artfully litigated the battles that needed to be fought and settled the controversies that needed to be resolved. Often referred to as the imaginative intellectual, he has never shied away from the impossible encounter nor from pushing forward when opportunity for the client presented itself.

Early on in his career, Berger made a name for himself when he encountered the start of mass-evictions of low-income denizens of certain Mitchell-Lama housing developments just so that the City of New York could resolve its own housing discrimination shortfalls.

He initially filed a Federal Civil Rights suit on behalf of the group (Adler v. Kent Village Housing Co. & City of NY) and then ultimately and successfully represented those very same families seven years later before the Appellate Division in the New York State Courts (Waldman v. Department of Housing Preservation & Development).

Later, Berger also successfully represented 17 property owners in putting the City’s Section 8 housing subsidy program in its place (Flosar Realty LLC v. New York City Housing Authority).

Many attorneys claim to provide individualized attention to your business dispute to increase its chance of success and lower its total cost. Jason Fink has developed a distinctive method for doing so over the past 20 years.

Fink has repeatedly demonstrated that he can use his programming background to reliably perform accurate research quite quickly which allows him to map out each dispute at its inception, gathering and analyzing the specific rules and exceptions that apply to its particular facts.

He is also able to successfully locate and analyze the important details of each such business dispute from his client-side experience as in-house counsel. Fink synthesizes both of these types of information strategically with an eye towards winning each dispute in the initial stages of litigation, saving his clients’ time and money.

Fink has a history of successfully litigating cases that involve a wide variety of commercial real estate and business disputes. His current work includes motion and pleadings practice, trials, depositions and settlement negotiations for cases in State Supreme Court and Civil Court and appellate practice in the Appellate Division and Appellate Term.

He was also previously in-house counsel where he dealt with extensive compliance and transactional issues and has over 15 years of commercial contract drafting and negotiation experience.

For more than a decade, Jason was a legal editor for LexisNexis for legal treatises, including purchase and sale of real property, Florida foreclosures, Texas municipal zoning laws and ADA public accommodations and commercial facilities.

Fink was a member of the Law Review while at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and the recipient of a number of awards while at New York University, which include the Albert Gallatin, the Helbein and the Westlake Foundation Scholarships.

Fink is honored to have been selected to the Super Lawyers list in 2024 and 2025 and profiled in Marquis Who’s Who in America.