I have devoted almost 30 years helping victims of personal injuries navigate a challenging maze called the legal system. It has always been my goal that every one of my clients feels respected and attended to. No client should ever pass through our doors and feel isolated or ignored. I lived the first half of my life near the beach in Far Rockaway, a small community in Southeastern Queens. Currently, I live in Long Beach, another beachfront community in the Southwestern part of Long Island. Obviously, I love living near the ocean. I have been very involved in the Long Island community and in 2000 was asked to join the Board of Directors of the Friedberg JCC and a few years later I was elected to the position of President of the Board. I always tried to stay active in the communities where I lived whether it was being involved in youth groups, working in the area or just keeping in touch with old friends or making new ones.

Robert Bashner has been in the personal injury field since graduating Brooklyn Law School in 1987. Early in his career, he worked at a volume-oriented firm and gained valuable experience battling with defense lawyers on behalf of his injured clients. The pace was frantic and he enjoyed the challenge. With much experience under his belt, Robert moved on to a smaller firm where he could practice with a more personal touch. Over time he rose to managing attorney and supervised office staff and junior attorneys. Many lawyers working under Robert have gone onto prosperous careers in the personal injury field. When they see him in court today, they often thank him for patiently training them and teaching them his diligent and aggressive approach to enforcing the rights of victims. Upon building up a large base of satisfied clients and referrals from them and other attorneys, Robert joined Neal Goldstein to become a partner at Goldstein and Bashner. Since 1999, he has fought side by side with Neal on behalf of victims who sustained personal injuries, specializing in motor vehicle accidents, drunken driving cases, construction accidents and railroad injuries. Robert and the firm support charitable causes for the environment, fighting for the rights of the disabled and helping Latinos and immigrant workers who become injured at work. Robert lives on Long Island with his wife and daughter. In his spare time he enjoys boating, skiing, playing volleyball, golfing and swimming.

Richard S. Gershman, the firm’s founder, has been practicing law for more than five decades. Over the past 50 years, Richard Gershman has won recoveries amounting in the millions of dollars for injured plaintiffs and their families. As most colleagues and clients already know, Richard Gershman is a tireless advocate for those injured through the negligence of others. Richard S. Gershman, born in Far Rockaway, New York 1946, attended Oklahoma City University earning a BS in business, and continued his education at Suffolk University Law School earning a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree. Professionally, Richard S. Gershman specializes in Personal Injury beginning his career with the Law Firm Queller & Fisher. He then went on to form his own firm Bernstein & Gershman which handled real estate transactions along with oil & gas transactions. He now is the sole owner of Richard S. Gershman & Associates PC. Richard S. Gershman has formerly been a board member of Franklin General Hospital. He is the former president of the Woodmere Country Club. He has served as a board member of Fresh Meadow Country Club. He is currently a Board Member of Northwell Health and was named the outstanding Associate Trustee of the hospital in 2019. Over the past 35 years, he has headed up Golf tournaments for numerous charities including Northwell Health for Cohen’s Children’s Hospital, raising in excess of twenty-five million dollars.

Byron was born and raised in Long Island, New York. He is a proud descendant of two working-class Guatemalan parents who arrived in the United States in the 1980s and went through the process of becoming legal United States citizens, wanting a better life for their family. Byron witnessed first-hand how complicated the immigration process can be and how the language barrier is a massive issue for many, miscommunications causing the individual to miss dates and not understand procedures or what to do next. Byron acknowledges that he wants to recompense his parent’s struggles to achieve the American Dream by serving as a voice and a gladiator in the courtroom on behalf of his clients. The struggles that his clients experience with the continuing complicated immigration process empowered Byron to gain a broad cultural awareness, which motivated Byron to help the same working-class Latino communities with their legal matters near and dear to his heart. Byron graduated from New York’s highly-ranked college Binghamton University and received his law degree from Florida Coastal School of Law. Byron volunteered his afternoons and evenings while attending college and law school to advocate on behalf of the client to resolve immigration related-matters and defend the client against deceptive and illegal consumer practices under the supervision of an attorney. In college, Byron volunteered with the New York Attorney General’s Office in Binghamton’s Bureau of Consumer Frauds and Protection unit, which is part of the Economic Justice Division, to advocate on behalf of consumers suffering fraudulent, misleading, and deceptive, and illegal consumer practices, and to prosecute businesses and individuals engaging in those deceptive practices. In law school, Byron volunteered at his law school’s immigration clinic, sponsored by the Vera Institute of Justice under Vera’s Unaccompanied Children Program to provide legal representation to immigrant children from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, and placed in immigration proceedings. Byron’s law school clinic appointed him as the go-to person to train and manage other law students participating in the immigration clinic to prepare asylum, family-based petitions, and citizenship immigration petitions on behalf of the clinic’s clients. Byron’s dedication to helping others is a testament to his work. Byron is fluent in Spanish, and he has appeared as a legal advisor to educate the Latino community on the continuing changes to the immigration laws, as they happen quickly and can significantly affect people’s lives, on monumental television networks, such as Telemundo, Univision, and other national Latino mornings programs such as Vision Latina and TV Azteca. Byron serves as the point of contact in his Great Neck community for non-native speakers and those who need legal representation, and he opens the door to clients who continue to struggle to access it. Byron’s clients chose to work with his boutique law firm because of his extreme diligence, keen eye for detail, commitment to his client’s needs, and confidence in his approach to solutions to his client’s matters.

Stephen B. Tiger is a firm believer in doing whatever is necessary to secure the best possible recoveries for his clients. “I take a lot of pride in helping people,” he says. “I do my best for them and try to make a change for what’s right.” After receiving a Bachelor of Business Administration degree at Hofstra University in 1987, Tiger worked in the field of finance for several years before realizing that he wanted to practice law. He enrolled at Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center and got his J.D. there in 1994. Tiger clerked for two criminal court judges and began his legal career handling criminal defense cases, but then began to move into the area of plaintiff’s personal injury law, which he prefers. He practiced solo and also in a small partnership before joining The Law Office of Cohen & Jaffe, LLP in 2011, where his career has thrived, leading to his promotion to partner as of 2024. Tiger’s practice concentrates almost exclusively on plaintiff-side civil litigation. “I represent injured persons,” he says. “I attempt to get them fairly compensated, usually from big insurance companies or other big corporate entities that have harmed them through negligence.” His efforts have resulted in numerous sizeable outcomes for his clients, including $3 million for an injured motorcyclist, $1.45 million for a child who suffered a head injury in a motor vehicle accident, $1.8 million for an automobile passenger who suffered spinal injuries in an accident, and $875,000 for a passenger whose injured knee required multiple surgical procedures. Usually, the defendants in these cases are reluctant to admit fault, but Tiger has years of experience in knowing how to deal with them. “I’m appalled that the insurance carriers have managed to negatively influence the public’s perception of injured parties going for recovery,” he says. “I really don’t like to take what the insurance companies do lying down, so I’m happy to fight with them for the people.” Tiger is particularly known for his relentlessness in the discovery process. Often, defendants are dishonest, and do not exchange documents that they are lawfully required to. Only through Tiger’s persistence and perseverance are these materials uncovered, often leading to favorable results, even in circumstances that at first glance seem unfavorable to injured clients.

Stephen Cohen grew up in working-class Queens, where he learned about the importance of hard work from his family and neighbors. He also learned that bad things can happen to good people – and that when they do, they oftentimes need a helping hand. “I had an understanding that everyday people had accidents through no fault of their own,” he recalls. “I think that’s what pushed me into becoming a lawyer.” He has carried that commitment to helping everyday working people throughout his legal career. After receiving his B.S. degree at Bradley University in 1971, he enrolled at St. John’s University School of Law and got his J.D. there in 1974. He joined a small law firm for a time before venturing out to create his own solo law practice, which was located in a third-floor walkup in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. Initially, Cohen handled a wide variety of cases. But early on, he realized that personal injury law was his passion and began to focus his practice in that area. In the ensuing years, that concentration has never wavered. For a time he moved his practice to lower Manhattan, but after he started a family and moved to Long Island he decided to set up shop closer to home. He opened an office in Great Neck and then moved to the firm’s current location in New Hyde Park. Over the years, his solo practice grew into a multi-lawyer firm that now has six attorneys and a support staff of more than 20. Cohen believes that the key to the firm’s success and growth has been its focus on providing the best possible service. “I take great pride that the firm is really people-related,” he says. “I want the firm to convey the idea that when they come in to see us, we’re no better than they are – that this is just what we do and that we respect what they do.” He has represented thousands of injured parties in automobile accidents, trip and fall cases, construction accidents, and the like. He divested the practice into No-Fault collection in both the arbitration and judicial forums, representing health care providers against insurance carriers for collection of bills relating to the treatment of individuals injured in automobile accidents.

“I want to convey to the clients that we’re going to do the best we can and that no matter how many questions you have, you’re always going to get that service. You’re going to get courteous people who care about you.” Richard After pioneering a string of personal injury cases on Long Island and in the New York City metropolitan area involving lead paint poisoning of infants, Richard’s reputation would be well known enough as a fierce trial attorney and litigator. But he didn’t stop there. In fact, Richard has managed to secure several multi-million dollar verdicts and settlements throughout his 30 years of experience, which has earned him membership in many prestigious circles, such as the nation’s Million Dollar Advocates Forum. When not in front of a jury, Richard, is a proud member of the Patriot Guard—an organization established in 2005, which primarily aims to support the families of fallen heroes by protecting them from disruptions during the services for their loved one. He also serves as a board member for The Center for Developmental Disabilities and actively supports the Babylon Breast Cancer Coalition. In the past, Rich has volunteered as a Critical Care Emergency Medical Technician (EMT-CC) and Firefighter on Long Island. When his children were younger, he often coached basketball and lacrosse on Long Island sports fields. Rich is smart, confident, entertaining, fully committed, energetic, and caring. Recently, Richard became a member of the Blue Knights LE MC Chapter in New York State. He is, perhaps, the world’s worst (but most enthusiastic) dancer and the start and finish of every family function. Richard was born and raised in New York, as were his parents and grandparents all who forged his incredibly strong work ethic and tenacity. To his credit, he paid for both college and Law school tuition by working during the hours he was not studying. As a graduate of Binghamton University with a degree in Romance Languages and Literature, Richard is fluent in Spanish and has a working knowledge of five other languages. His history of helping victims of discrimination and negligence dates back as far as 1988, giving the Hispanic community a voice working as a paralegal for a major personal injury law firm. Richard met his current law partner, Stephen Cohen, in 1993. Working as a Law clerk by day and completing Law School by night, Richard authored memoranda and appellate briefs on negligence and discrimination issues that continue to be cited by New York State’s highest courts to this day. Upon graduation from Law School, Richard became an associate attorney with Cohen’s Law Office, and began a trial the very first day he was admitted to practice. Richard hasn’t looked back since. He has obtained hundreds of verdicts and settlements for victims of accidents and discrimination throughout courts of Long Island and the New York City metropolitan area, many in excess of one million dollars. He and Stephen Cohen are now partners at Cohen & Jaffe. Nonetheless, Richard hasn’t forgotten his New York roots, nor his blue collar formative years. He is thankful for the opportunities and core values given to him by his family, which serve as the backbone of his fight for the rights of his clients against insurance giants like State Farm, Allstate and GEICO, to name a few. Call Richard. He will do the same for you. Whether your life is shattered by a car accident, a trip and fall, a construction accident, or discrimination at work, Richard knows it’s more than just a case for you – it’s about putting your life and the lives of your family back together.

Ms. Caitlin McNaughton is a tough litigator who chose a career as an attorney because she firmly believes in standing up for those who cannot stand up for themselves. She has always believed that while flawed, the American judicial system represents the best force for justice in the world. During law school, as a part of her LL.M. degree, Caitlin worked in Tanzania with the Tanzanian government and various non-government organizations on legislative reform to expand legal rights for Tanzanian women and children. Caitlin is licensed in three states as well as admitted to practice in both federal and Appellate courts; she takes pride in her work, zealously representing clients at all stages of litigation, arbitration, and in pre-litigation matters. Caitlin has achieved over $12 million in settlements and verdicts for her clients. In her spare time, Caitlin enjoys reading and political activism.

Laurie Bakhchi is a real estate lawyer proudly serving Garden City, NY and the neighboring communities. Ms. Backhchi receiver her J.D. from the Hofstra University School of Law.