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At a Glance
| Founded by | Henry L. Moses and Henry B. Singer in 1919, originally to serve Public National Bank alongside their own private clients (per the firm) |
| Focus | Trusts and estates litigation and administration, paired with family law litigation, as one practice group inside a full-service firm (per the firm) |
| Office | The Chrysler Building, 405 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10174 (Midtown Manhattan) |
| Signature results | Firm states it won dismissal, after 35 days of trial, of a $2 billion negligence and breach-of-fiduciary-duty claim against a corporate trustee (per the firm) |
| Distinctive edge | An 11-attorney trusts and estates group, led by a named practice chair, embedded inside a firm operating continuously since 1919 (per the firm) |
| Fee model | Not published on the firm’s site |
| Known for | Contested Surrogate’s Court litigation, institutional trustee defense, estate and gift tax planning, and asset protection planning (per the firm) |
Origin and Background
Moses & Singer was not built around a personal-injury docket or a solo practitioner’s name on the door; it was built to serve a bank. The firm states that Henry L. Moses and Henry B. Singer founded it in 1919 specifically to represent Public National Bank, taking on the bank’s own private clients and their businesses alongside that institutional work. More than a century later, the firm describes itself as still operating from that same client-service model, with attorneys who the firm says have built their entire careers there rather than rotating through on the standard lateral-partner track. Its office sits in the Chrysler Building at 405 Lexington Avenue, a Midtown Manhattan address the firm has occupied for decades, and it maintains a global referral network through the MSI Global Alliance, a group of independent legal and accounting firms spanning more than 100 countries.
What Makes This Firm Structurally Different
Many New York trusts and estates practices are either a single department bolted onto a general-service firm or a standalone boutique with a handful of partners. Moses & Singer sits in between: its Trusts & Estates and Family Law Litigation group lists eleven named attorneys, from senior partners to of counsel, under a formally designated practice chair, Irving Sitnick, with a separate Private Clients group chaired by Evan S. Cowit, who joined in 2024 after leading the trusts and estates practice at another New York firm. That structure gives clients a litigation bench deep enough to handle multi-week trials over nine-figure claims, while keeping the direct-partner-contact model the firm says defines its broader client relationships, rather than routing matters through leveraged teams of rotating associates.
Practice Areas
- Contested and uncontested Surrogate’s Court proceedings
- Will contests, construction proceedings, and accountings
- Institutional and individual fiduciary defense
- Estate planning, administration, and gift taxation
- Asset protection planning
- Guardianships and family law litigation
Track Record
Moses & Singer’s own representative-matters listing for this group is unusually specific for a firm of its size. The firm states it successfully defended an institutional trustee against a $2 billion claim for negligent administration of a testamentary trust, winning dismissal after 35 days of trial. It also states it obtained summary judgment admitting a contested will to probate over a grandchild’s challenge, defended another institutional trustee against a multi-million-dollar claim under the Prudent Investor Act, and secured the turnover of a decedent’s retirement assets after establishing that a third-party beneficiary designation resulted from undue influence and incapacity. These are the firm’s own characterizations of matters it says it handled; Awesome Attorneys did not independently verify docket-level outcomes for each listed matter. The firm’s own representative-matters page states that prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome, and past results in any matter do not predict or guarantee a similar outcome in any future matter.
Client Voice
Awesome Attorneys did not identify a set of independently attributed, publicly posted client reviews specific to this firm’s trusts and estates practice as of the research date. Given the group’s client base of institutional fiduciaries, trust companies, and high-net-worth families in contested litigation, this is consistent with the pattern seen across comparable litigation-focused private-client practices, where client feedback tends to appear in referral relationships rather than public review platforms.
Beyond the Courtroom
Awesome Attorneys did not identify specific published community or pro bono activity tied to this practice group as of the research date. The firm maintains a broader diversity and community program at the firm-wide level, described on its own site, that is not specific to the trusts and estates group.
Recognition
Moses & Singer states that its attorneys have been recognized by Best Lawyers, an organization the firm notes is based on an exhaustive peer-review survey in which lawyers cannot pay to be listed; Julian S. Millstein, Special Counsel in the Trusts & Estates and Family Law Litigation group, was named to the 2027 Best Lawyers in America list. Gideon Rothschild, Senior Counsel and former Co-Chair of the Private Client practice group, has been named a New York City “Lawyer of the Year” for Trusts & Estates by Best Lawyers and is a co-author of a Bloomberg BNA Tax Management Portfolio on asset protection planning, according to his firm biography. The firm also cites Super Lawyers selections and Chambers & Partners rankings for its attorneys, and reports rankings in the Legal 500 United States 2026 guide. New York does not maintain a formal board-certification system for trusts and estates practice comparable to Texas’s TBLS, so Awesome Attorneys does not apply “specialist” language to any attorney at this firm on that basis, notwithstanding the firm’s own description of Rothschild as a “nationally-recognized authority” in his field.
New York Legal Backdrop
Will contests in New York proceed through Surrogate’s Court under the Surrogate’s Court Procedure Act, with objections to probate generally governed by SCPA § 1410 and related provisions. The Estates, Powers and Trusts Law sets the substantive rules for will validity (EPTL § 3-2.1) and a surviving spouse’s right of election against an estate (EPTL § 5-1.1-A). Contested guardianship proceedings for incapacitated adults are governed by Mental Hygiene Law Article 81, a distinct statutory scheme from the guardianship-of-minors provisions found in the SCPA. None of this is legal advice; a specific estate, trust, or guardianship dispute should be evaluated by a licensed New York attorney based on the actual facts involved.
Awesome Attorneys Assessment
Moses & Singer’s clearest differentiator is scale paired with specialization: an eleven-attorney trusts and estates group, with a named chair and a track record that includes defeating a $2 billion claim after a 35-day trial, operating inside a firm old enough to have represented the same bank that hired it in 1919. The honest trade-off is that this is not a low-cost, high-volume will-drafting operation; its own representative matters skew toward institutional trustee defense and multi-million-dollar disputes, and Awesome Attorneys could not locate independently attributed client reviews to weigh against the firm’s own account of its case history. For an executor, trust company, or family already facing (or bracing for) a high-stakes contested Surrogate’s Court matter, a firm with this litigation depth is a reasonable one to have on a shortlist; someone who simply needs a straightforward will is likely better served by a smaller, planning-focused practice.
Methodology and Sourcing
This profile was researched from Moses & Singer’s own website, including its Firm Overview, History, Trusts & Estates and Family Law Litigation practice, People, and Representative Matters pages, along with independent press releases confirming the lateral additions of Evan S. Cowit and George R. McCormick to the firm’s Private Clients and Trusts & Estates practices.
Publisher Disclosure and Independence Notice
Awesome Attorneys is an independent legal directory and editorial publication. This profile was not paid for, commissioned, or reviewed by Moses & Singer LLP prior to publication. Awesome Attorneys does not endorse, recommend, or warrant any profiled firm, and inclusion in this directory is not a paid placement. “Awesome Attorneys” is a brand name only and does not constitute a rating or ranking claim. Facts stated are current only as of this profile’s research date.