Grinberg & Segal: The Financial District Firm Built for Immigration’s Deep End

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Grinberg & Segal practices immigration law from Manhattan’s Financial District with a structure that tells you its philosophy up front: a published flat consultation fee — $260 for up to forty-five minutes, any topic, in person, by phone, or over video — and a bench that works in English, Russian, Hebrew, Ukrainian, and Spanish. Founded in 2002, the firm pairs a full-spectrum immigration practice with unusual depth in the hardest corners of the field: asylum in all its forms, including LGBT-based claims; detention representation; and the appellate machinery of motions to reopen, BIA appeals, and federal petitions for review.

At a Glance

Firm	The Law Offices of Grinberg & Segal, PLLC (established 2002)
Key Attorneys	Alexander J. Segal, Eliza Grinberg (founding partners), and Melsida Asatrian — more than 30 years of combined immigration experience
Office	Financial District, Manhattan — 27 Whitehall Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10004 per current listings (the firm’s longtime address at 11 Hanover Square also circulates in older directories); clients represented nationwide and abroad
Focus	Immigration law across the full spectrum — asylum (political, religious, and LGBT-based claims), deportation and removal defense including detained cases, appeals, motions to reopen, and federal petitions for review, family- and employment-based immigration, EB-5 investor visas, extraordinary-ability petitions, VAWA, and naturalization
Languages	English, Russian, Hebrew, Ukrainian, Spanish
Consultation	Flat fee of $260 for up to 45 minutes, regardless of topic — in person, by phone, or by video

Career History

The firm was established in 2002 by Alexander Segal and Eliza Grinberg and has practiced from lower Manhattan since. Grinberg’s practice centers on immigration litigation, with client representation across New York and New Jersey; Segal’s spans the field’s advisory and litigation sides; and Asatrian adds further removal-defense and appellate depth. Together the partners have represented thousands of clients across the country and abroad, and the firm has built an unusually substantial public-education footprint: its companion site publishes an extensive library of plain-language articles on immigration law topics, functioning as a reference resource well beyond the firm’s own clientele. Federal Bar Association membership anchors the firm’s professional affiliations.

Practice Concentration

The practice covers immigration wall to wall, but three concentrations stand out. First, protection claims: asylum in its political, religious, and LGBT variants — the last a specialty the firm advertises with granular seriousness, spanning gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender claims — plus VAWA and refugee matters. Second, the fight-back apparatus: removal defense including detained clients under orders of supervision, appeals of denials, motions to reopen, and petitions for review in the federal courts — the procedural deep end where most immigration practices thin out. Third, the affirmative side: family- and employment-based residence, EB-5 investor visas, extraordinary-ability petitions, and naturalization, for individual and business clients alike. The multilingual bench maps directly onto the city’s largest immigrant communities.

Track Record

The firm characterizes its record as thousands of clients across two-plus decades achieving status, residence, and protection — a characterization we attribute as the firm’s own, since immigration outcomes are not published in ledger form. The concrete verifiables are structural: twenty-four years of continuous practice, a three-attorney partnership stable across that span, a 4.6-star aggregate across more than a hundred Google reviews, and the sustained appellate practice its motion-and-petition specialty implies. This research did not independently verify individual outcomes. Past results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future case.

Client Voice

The aggregated Google record runs to 4.6 stars across 108 reviews — a substantial, strong base for a practice of this size. Client accounts across platforms emphasize personalized attention and thorough preparation, the firm’s own stated method. The transparent flat-fee consultation is itself a client-protective structure in a field notorious for fee opacity, and worth noting as such. This research did not surface any public disciplinary findings against the firm’s attorneys.

Beyond the Courtroom

The firm’s plain-language legal-information library — covering asylum, removal, family, and employment topics in accessible depth — is a genuine public-education contribution used by immigrants and practitioners beyond its client base, and its LGBT-asylum concentration serves a population that other practices often handle only incidentally. The five-language capability is community infrastructure in itself.

Recognition

Sorting per our standard: the Federal Bar Association membership is a professional affiliation; the Avvo Client’s Choice recognition is a platform-based client-review award; and the substantive credential is the practice structure itself — the appellate and detained-case capability that peer practices refer out. A disclosure we apply to every New York profile: New York State does not operate a board certification program for legal specialties comparable to the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, so no New York attorney profile on this site will describe its subject as a state-certified specialist, and this profile attributes no certification to the firm’s attorneys.

New York Legal Backdrop

Immigration law is federal, and New York City sits at its center of gravity: the immigration courts at 26 Federal Plaza and Varick Street run among the nation’s heaviest removal dockets, and the Second Circuit shapes asylum doctrine for the region. Three structural facts frame every case. Removal proceedings are civil, so there is no appointed counsel — representation is the single largest controllable variable, especially for detained respondents. Asylum carries a one-year filing deadline from arrival, with narrow exceptions, making early counsel decisive for protection claims. And denial is rarely the end: motions to reopen, BIA appeals, and petitions for review in the Court of Appeals form an error-correction ladder with strict deadlines at every rung — thirty days for a petition for review — where procedural mastery determines whether a meritorious claim survives. Affirmative paths run on preference categories and priority-date backlogs where strategy matters as much as eligibility. None of this is legal advice; consult a licensed immigration attorney about your situation.

Awesome Attorneys Assessment

The case for Grinberg & Segal is deep-end capability with transparent economics: genuine asylum, detention, and appellate practice — the work most immigration firms refer out — a stable two-decade partnership, five working languages matched to the city’s immigrant communities, a strong hundred-plus review record, and a published flat consultation fee that removes the field’s usual intake opacity.

The honest trade-offs, stated plainly: this is a compact three-attorney bench, with the capacity limits that implies against the city’s large-firm competitors; the firm’s outcome characterizations are its own, as is standard in this field; its marketing footprint is extensive, with multiple branded websites, which prospective clients should read as the practice-development apparatus it is; and its current street address should be confirmed at contact, as listings vary between its present and longtime prior locations.

Methodology & Sourcing

This profile was researched and written independently by Awesome Attorneys in August 2026 without the participation, sponsorship, or payment of The Law Offices of Grinberg & Segal, PLLC. Primary sources: the firm’s websites (myattorneyusa.com and affiliated pages), including its about and consultation pages (the 2002-era practice history; partner roster and backgrounds; the 30-years-combined figure; practice scope; the $260 flat consultation fee; the legal-information library). Independent verification: Yelp listing (2002 establishment; the Hanover Square address history; the granular asylum-specialty roster including LGBT claims); FindLaw listing (partner names; the Hanover Square/Beaver Street entrance details); Martindale firm profile (practice designations; language capabilities; Federal Bar Association affiliation; Avvo recognition); AILA lawyer directory (Segal’s listing); African Immigration Lawyers directory (the current Whitehall Street address; the 4.6-star, 108-review Google aggregate cited in Client Voice). The federal-law framework in the Legal Backdrop reflects the Immigration and Nationality Act’s public provisions.

Publisher Disclosure & Independence Notice

Awesome Attorneys is an independent legal-directory publisher. This profile was not paid for by The Law Offices of Grinberg & Segal, PLLC, and inclusion in our editorial coverage cannot be purchased. Our methodology and editorial standards are applied consistently across all firms we cover.