Feiner & Lavy: Four Decades of Immigration Practice Across the Street From 26 Federal Plaza

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Feiner & Lavy’s office sits at 325 Broadway — directly across the street from 26 Federal Plaza, the federal building where New York’s immigration cases are heard and its applications adjudicated. The location is the practice in miniature: a firm founded by prominent New York immigration lawyer Michael Feiner more than forty years ago, now led by principal attorney Yaniv Lavy, that has processed thousands of clients through the machinery on the other side of Broadway — work visas, green cards, citizenship, asylum, waivers, and deportation defense — with one of the largest client-review footprints in this category.

At a Glance

Firm	Feiner & Lavy, P.C., Attorneys at Law (founding practice over 40 years old; current P.C. established 2003)
Principal Attorney	Yaniv Lavy, Esq., Managing Partner; founding name partner Michael Feiner
Office	325 Broadway, Suite 401, New York, NY 10007 — across from 26 Federal Plaza; additional office in Phoenix, Arizona
Focus	U.S. immigration law for individuals, employers, and corporations worldwide — work visas and authorizations, family- and employment-based green cards, citizenship and naturalization, asylum, waivers, and deportation and removal defense, with particular experience at the criminal-immigration intersection; the firm also maintains a personal-injury line
Principal’s Background	Law degree with honors, University of East London; practicing in the United States for well over a decade; founder of the earlier Lavy Law Associates, P.C.; Hebrew and English speaker; extensive published Q&A contributions on immigration law
Review Base	4.7-star aggregate across roughly 420 reviews — among the largest in this category
Fee Structure	By consultation

Career History

The practice’s roots run through Michael Feiner, who built one of the city’s recognized immigration firms over four decades and thousands of client matters. Yaniv Lavy — UK-educated with honors, with coursework spanning criminal and public international law — began U.S. practice more than a decade ago, built his own firm, added criminal-defense experience that now informs the practice’s criminal-immigration crossover work, and ultimately took the helm of Feiner & Lavy as principal, continuing the firm from its longtime Broadway address. His public-education footprint is substantial: he is a prolific contributor of published answers helping non-clients understand immigration law, and — unusually — he publicly responds to critical reviews under his own name, a transparency practice we note as a matter of record.

Practice Concentration

The practice covers the immigration field’s working core at volume: employment-based visas and work authorization, family- and employment-based permanent residence, naturalization, asylum, waivers of inadmissibility, and removal defense. The criminal-immigration intersection is a stated strength — the collision zone where even minor violations can trigger deportation exposure, and where Lavy’s criminal-defense background applies directly. The firm serves individual, employer, and corporate clients from around the world, with the Phoenix office extending its reach; a personal-injury line runs alongside the immigration core, which we note plainly per our mixed-practice standard.

Track Record

The firm characterizes its record as thousands of clients obtaining status across four decades — a characterization we attribute as the firm’s own, since immigration outcomes are not published in ledger form. The client-reported specifics are concrete and frequent: green cards approved on the spot at interview and delivered within days, complicated permanent-residence cases walked through step by step, citizenship obtained across repeat engagements. 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 review record is large and predominantly strong — 4.7 stars across roughly 420 aggregated reviews, with named staff (paralegals and case managers) repeatedly singled out for responsiveness, and clients describing seamless processes and deportation cases turned around. Per our disclosure policy, the record’s adverse entries are reported rather than omitted: one reviewer alleges paying a $600 retainer for a spouse’s overseas case and then receiving no communication for two years; a small cluster of one-star reviews alleges impersonal treatment and unmet expectations; and in at least one instance Lavy has publicly rebutted a negative review as malicious, citing visa-bulletin waiting periods no lawyer can shorten. An independent aggregator characterizes the overall record as mixed at its edges around a strongly positive center. Prospective clients should read the record directly and ask pointed questions about communication protocols at intake. This research did not surface any public disciplinary findings.

Beyond the Courtroom

The firm’s location across from 26 Federal Plaza makes it a first stop for immigrants navigating the federal building’s processes, and Lavy’s extensive published Q&A work — answering immigration questions publicly for people who may never become clients — is a genuine public-education contribution in a field where misinformation is costly.

Recognition

Sorting per our standard: the substantive credentials here are longevity and volume — a forty-year practice lineage, a four-hundred-review client base, and the principal’s published contribution record; no peer-institutional awards are claimed, and none are attributed. 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 this firm practices across the street from its New York epicenter: 26 Federal Plaza houses immigration courts and USCIS operations for one of the nation’s heaviest dockets. The structural facts that frame every case: removal proceedings are civil, with no right to appointed counsel, making representation the largest controllable variable; asylum carries a one-year filing deadline from arrival; the criminal-immigration intersection is unforgiving, with certain convictions triggering near-automatic removal consequences that competent crossover counsel can sometimes avoid at the plea stage; and both family- and employment-based paths run on preference categories and visa-bulletin priority dates whose waiting periods no attorney can shorten — a fact this firm’s principal has himself publicly emphasized. Waivers of inadmissibility, adjustment of status, and naturalization each carry their own eligibility architecture where early, accurate advice prevents years of lost time. None of this is legal advice; consult a licensed immigration attorney about your situation.

Awesome Attorneys Assessment

The case for Feiner & Lavy is proximity, volume, and lineage: a forty-year practice at the courthouse’s doorstep, one of the category’s largest and strongest review bases, genuine criminal-immigration crossover capability, bilingual Hebrew-English service, and a principal whose public transparency — published answers, signed responses to critics — is rare in this field.

The honest trade-offs, stated plainly: the adverse review entries disclosed above, including the communication allegation, are serious enough that prospective clients should establish response-time expectations in writing at intake; the practice is mixed rather than immigration-only, with a personal-injury line; the principal’s legal education is UK-based with U.S. practice built subsequently — a common and legitimate path we note for completeness; the firm’s outcome characterizations are its own; and no peer-institutional recognition is part of this record.

Methodology & Sourcing

This profile was researched and written independently by Awesome Attorneys in August 2026 without the participation, sponsorship, or payment of Feiner & Lavy, P.C. Primary sources: the firm’s website (drimmigration.com), including its firm-history and attorney pages (the Michael Feiner founding and forty-year lineage; the 26 Federal Plaza-adjacent location; practice scope; Lavy’s education, career chronology, language capability, and published-contribution record). Independent verification: Yelp and TrustReviewers listings (the 325 Broadway, Suite 401 address; client accounts including the on-the-spot approval reports); Birdeye aggregate (the 4.7-star, ~420-review record cited throughout); Better Business Bureau profile (Lavy’s managing-partner role); Lawful directory (the 2003 P.C. establishment; the personal-injury line; practice scope); Avvo review pages (the one-star cluster and Lavy’s signed public rebuttal, disclosed in Client Voice); an independent aggregator’s mixed-record characterization (esplawyers), including the two-year communication allegation disclosed above. The federal-law framework in the Legal Backdrop reflects the Immigration and Nationality Act’s public provisions and the Department of State visa bulletin system.

Publisher Disclosure & Independence Notice

Awesome Attorneys is an independent legal-directory publisher. This profile was not paid for by Feiner & Lavy, P.C., and inclusion in our editorial coverage cannot be purchased. Our methodology and editorial standards are applied consistently across all firms we cover.