"As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever." - Clarence Darrow 

• Brooke S. B. v. Elizabeth A.C.C.

  Warshaw Burstein was lead appellate counsel in the groundbreaking case of Brooke S. B. v. Elizabeth A.C.C. where we successfully argued for the Court of Appeals to overrule its own discriminatory definition of “parent” which had been enunciated twenty-five (25) years previously in Alison D. v. Virginia M.   Warshaw Burstein took the lead in broadening the definition of parent and thereby securing the rights of New York gay, lesbian and transgender parents. A fuller discussion appears on our home page.

• Protecting the Rights of Same-Sex Parents

  Warshaw Burstein was co-counsel in a case involving a same-sex male couple married in a foreign country who had a child with an American surrogate in the United States during their marriage. We represented the non-biological spouse who sought to vacate the New York adoption of his child by his husband’s business partner.  The biological parent/husband, and his business partner, had proceeded clandestinely in New York where they had taken the child, without notice to the non-biological spouse, to terminate his parental rights and have the boyfriend adopt the child.  The New York Family Court found that the adoption had been procured through fraudulent representations to the Court by the biological spouse and his business partner, and vacated the business partner’s adoption.

• Gonzalez v. Greene

  Eric Wrubel, represented the plaintiff in Gonzalez v. Greene, the first case in New York to uphold a separation/settlement agreement between a same-sex couple married in Massachusetts before marriage equality was legally recognized in New York.

• Litigating Financial Issues in Same-Sex Divorces

  Warshaw Burstein has litigated financial issues in same-sex divorces following the US Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges.  For example, our team of legal professionals successfully argued on behalf of a client to a New York County matrimonial judge that a couple’s pre-marital multi-year relationship should, in that specific case, be considered by the Court (i.e., tacked onto the marriage) in determining the division of assets as well as the amount and duration of spousal support.

• Challenging the Fundamental Notions of Family

  With advances in human reproduction technology and recognition of same-sex marriage as a fundamental right, the manner in which family relationships are formed is rapidly changing.  Warshaw Burstein is once again challenging the fundamental notions of family by seeking a judgment declaring a gay married couple and the surrogate mother to each in his or her own right to be a parent of their child, i.e. a tri-custody arrangement. The expansion of the definition of "parent" by the Court of Appeals in Brooke S.B. v. Elizabeth A.C.C. has led to individuals asserting parental rights where such a claim had been previously estopped as a matter of law.