Williston Park attorney Michael Adges said his original intention in becoming a lawyer was to help people, and he hasn’t been disappointed.
“I get a great deal of satisfaction out of assisting somebody with a difficult problem,” Adges said.
When Adges was graduating from Stony Brook with a bachelors degree with a major in psychology and a minor in business in 1981, he said he knew he didn’t want to be a psychotherapist or an accountant.
He had enjoyed a couple of business law courses he took, so he went to the university library and started researching law schools.
“This is an honest way of making a living. I like the idea of helping people. I might be good at this,” Adges said he remembers thinking at the time.
Adges followed through, earned his juris doctor degree from the Benjamin Cardoza School of Law and started working for an attorney who had a real estate practice in Bayside.
“I learned how to do closings. And I enjoyed it,” he said.
That’s the way Adges said he envisioned his own practice of the law, working for a law firm and collecting a steady pay check. But after several years of working in the Bayside firm, he said his plans changed. He thought he’d be more successful on his own, so he set up his own practice in real estate law.
Things changed again when he and his wife, Ellyn, moved from Queens to Syosset and he decided to move his practice to Mineola to be close to the county seat and the county courts.
After 15 years in Mineola, he moved his practice to Williston Park, where he maintains an office at 105 Hillside Ave. He said he relocated because he finds Williston Park “a little more friendly” with a “little more home-town feel
While he still practices real estate law, he said his practice has expanded into bankruptcy law as people’s financial fortunes have shifted and property sale closings have become less numerous over the past several years. Now, he said, he considers himself a “general practitioner” of the law.
“The current economic climate has made it so that people need debt relief,” Adges said.
As people’s finances become complicated these days, he said, he finds himself sorting out solutions for people that include debt consolidation and litigation when clients are sued by creditors. These kinds of problems, he said, are increasingly more common and require a creative approach as people frequently come to him in desperation.
“Things have been turned upside down. Every other person seems to be in default or facing foreclosure. You have to customize a situation for each individual,” he said. “I’m a good listener. I want to know who you are and what you .”
Adges said he is frank with prospective clients about whether he thinks he can help them or not. And he finds himself applying some of things he learned at Stony Brook.
“You have to half a psychologist,” said Adges, adding that his problem-solving skills are his strongest asset
He sometimes takes cases on contingency and these days, he said, because maintaining a private law practice is more difficult than when he started.
“I’m working harder for the same dollar I was making 20 years ago,” he said. “It’s difficult, it’s frustrating and it’s stressful.”
Adges formerly did pro bono work as a member of the Queens Volunteer Lawyers Project. Now he’s designated by the Nassau County Bar Association as an attorney who volunteers his time to handle mandatory foreclosure cases in court for people who can’t afford legal representation.
He’s been involved with Midway Synagogue in Syosset, serving on its board of directors for nine years before stepping down recently.
Adges spent most of his free time with his wife and two children when they were growing up. Now, when he finds free time, he relaxes by playing electric guitar and an occasional round of golf.
