The Brooklyn Bar, which has called a historic brownstone on Remsen Street home since 1918, is selling the building to a developer for $12 million this fall and moving into a coworking space down the block. The bar will channel the sale proceeds into restabilizing the association after the COVID-19 pandemic and establishing a wide array of community and career-building opportunities for the borough\u2019s legal community.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to continue to educate our attorneys,\u201d Antonelli said in an interview with amNewYork Law. \u201cI want to continue to support the judiciary, and I want attorneys to feel like the Brooklyn Bar is a place where they could come to and grow, where they could accelerate their career, where they could find mentors, where they can accomplish whatever it is they want to accomplish, where they could find the tools for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beyond maintaining and increasing the bar\u2019s cultural and community networking events, he is seeking to add more programming for early-career attorneys (such has how to land a first job or pivot to a different field of law), general career-building events for lawyers of all ages, and workshops to build pathways to the judiciary.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even though it\u2019s a bit of a chaotic time for the association, Antonelli said he wouldn\u2019t give up the opportunity to lead it for anything: It\u2019s a position he\u2019s sought for years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always knew I wanted to not just play a leadership role, but to actually be the president, because I fell in love with the bar association,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m in the position I always wanted to be in, and that position is in a much more difficult environment, because we are going through a huge transition \u2026 It\u2019s an amazing opportunity because we\u2019re getting to reset, we\u2019re getting to rebuild. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s a blessing or a curse, but it happens to be me this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Screenshot-2026-07-31-at-4.34.15-PM.jpg\" "\\"Untangling")
Antonelli stands with Gregory Cerchione, the association\u2019s past president<\/p>\n
The effort to coordinate everything has been a big one, Antonelli said. But, as someone who deals with delicate emotional matters in his legal practice every day, it seems like he\u2019s well-equipped to navigate the challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thing that I feel like I\u2019ve learned and continue to learn is human psychology,\u201d Antonelli said. \u201cOver the course of my career, I think I\u2019ve learned that the best way to accomplish anything, your own goals and other people\u2019s goals, whether they\u2019re clients or adversaries, is to try to figure out what people need.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he\u2019s learned the key to finding common ground and getting somebody with an opposing view to understand his perspective is to first try to understand theirs. In his legal practice, that can involve long, emotional conversations and digging into years of finances.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThen you wind up going one of two directions: you either understand where they\u2019re coming from, and then you change your mind or \u2026 your mind didn\u2019t change, but their mind did because they understood that you\u2019re really trying to help them,\u201d Antonelli said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s those intricate interpersonal issues and delicately high tensions that flare after the stress and grief of death that make Antonelli love this practice area.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really interesting work because you\u2019re learning about people\u2019s lives after they passed away,\u201d Antonelli said. \u201cYou\u2019re learning so much about their family and their finances and all the drama that\u2019s involved: the kid that nobody knew about, or the spouse that nobody knew about.\u201d<\/p>\n
While he loves working on cases that deal with large amounts of money \u2014 they\u2019re stimulating because of their high-stakes nature, he said \u2014 the ones that create the best stories have nothing to do with net worth and everything to do with family networks.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s say, he said, a man who remarried later in life passes away. What of the relationship between his biological kids, step kids and new partner?\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes there\u2019s a beautiful dynamic, and other times, it\u2019s war,\u201d Antonelli said with a small laugh. \u201cIt\u2019s not as simple as just labeling it money or greed. It runs way deeper than that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also do kinship work,\u201d he added. \u201cTracing all the way back to grandparents and great grandparents, and you\u2019re learning where people came from \u2026 It\u2019s just fascinating. It makes for really good stories, and that to me, that\u2019s all life\u2019s about.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Antonelli stands in front of the Brooklyn Bar Association\u2019s building.Photo by Isabella Gallo<\/p>\n
Antonelli began working as an estate litigator for trust and probate matters just under 20 years ago. He jumped into the field, and his own firm, right after passing the bar exam in 2007.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_2559.jpg\" "\\"Untangling")
Antonelli stands in front of the bar association\u2019s banner.<\/p>\n