Stephen R. Angel Senior Counsel

Steve Angel has been with the firm since graduating law school in 1974.  Over his nearly five decades with the firm, Steve has conducted hundreds of trials and hearings and argued scores of appeals before the Federal and State Courts and various State and municipal agencies.  He also serves as Village Attorney to the Village of Westhampton Beach.

Steve’s litigation practice covers a broad range of areas, including actions against government (zoning, wetlands, beach rights, riparian rights, and regulatory takings), contract disputes (representing both owners and contractors), real estate title matters (ownership, easements, boundary disputes, and adverse possession), and estate litigation (contested probates, contested accountings, and other Surrogate’s Court proceedings).  He has been involved in several actions that have resulted in groundbreaking decisions, including cases on easements, regulatory takings, refunds of municipal fees, and brokerage commissions.

Steve has also been heavily involved in wetland proceedings ever since the State’s wetland regulations went into effect in the 1970s.  In one of those proceedings, Steve took a landowner through the complicated administrative and judicial process of proving that the wetland regulations amounted to a “regulatory taking,” or inverse condemnation, of the property.  That case, which resulted in a multi-million-dollar payment by the State to the owner, was the first reported case of its kind in New York to have been upheld on appeal.  Armed with that experience, Steve has helped similar landowners settle their claims with the State.

Steve has received Martindale Hubbell’s highest “AV” rating from its peer review process, as well as its selection as a Top Rated Lawyer in Land Use and Zoning.  He has also been recognized in Thompson-Reuter’s list of NY Metro Area “SuperLawyers.”  Steve has lectured to lawyers, engineers, and surveyors on easements, boundary disputes, water rights, erosion control, and wetlands.  Steve speaks Hungarian and has served as a guest lecturer in Hungary, at the Universities of Miskolc, Szeged, Debrecen, and Pecs. His most recent course was entitled, “Fundamental American Constitutional Issues.”