Peter John Galasso

This post is intended to challenge the accuracy and propriety of my AVVO rating.

On January 19, 2007, my law firm’s bookkeeper and my older brother, Tony Galasso, was arrested for perpetrating a massive fraud that enabled his theft of Firm and client escrow funds. Five years later, in February 2012, my 25-year career as a prominent Matrimonial attorney was devastated when my law license was suspended by the Appellate Division for two years based in large part on the magnitude of Tony’s unfathomable crime, for which he was convicted on all 22 counts of the Felony indictment issued by the Nassau County Grand Jury and was incarcerated at a New York prison for approximately three years.

Consonant with my contention that a suspension was a draconian penalty for my alleged lack of oversight of the Firm’s bank accounts, three separate New York State Bar Association Committees, including the approximate 10,000 members of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association, submitted amicus briefs on my behalf to the Court of Appeals, urging that my appeal be granted and my suspension reversed. In response, the Court of Appeals decided in its discretion to hear my appeal also decided to permit me to continue to practice law until it decided my appeal, which occurred about a year later.

In deciding my appeal, the Court of Appeals acknowledged that our bookkeeper’s crimes were diabolical and highly sophisticated and even quoted the Nassau County District Attorney’s supportive view of my position that Tony’s crimes were cleverly masked:

The Nassau County District Attorney’s Office submitted a letter to the Grievance Committee “providing its conclusions that no one else in the firm had knowledge of the theft and that nothing in the documents presented to the firm by Anthony Galasso would have raised any suspicion regarding the accounts.”

Nevertheless, the High Court affirmed the disciplinary charges relating to my errant delegation of bookkeeping tasks related to the escrow account and the Firm’s operating accounts, despite the fact that it was undisputed that I reviewed the relevant monthly escrow account statements that our bookkeeper deviously fabricated each month to make them look like the authentic monthly bank statements he had malevolently diverted each month to a remote Post Office Box. It was also uncontroverted that those same doctored escrow account statements were sent each month to our then client’s accountant, who also never realized they were illegitimate.

In its decision on my appeal, the Court of Appeals sent my case back to the Appellate Division with the following thoughtful admonition:

“Upon remittal, the Appellate Division should reconsider whether the suspension previously imposed remains an appropriate sanction.”

In ignoring that admonition and unmoved by the support given to me by the three Bar Association groups that also appealed the Appellate Division’s original decision to suspend me, the Appellate Division refused to modify its earlier decision.

Significant to this posting and its relevance to my skills as an attorney, nothing in the decisions rendered by the Appellate Division or the Court of Appeals questioned my abilities in the courtroom or in managing legal matters pertaining to my clients, which the Character and Fitness Committee touched on in issuing its unanimous decision to reinstate me, quoting witnesses who testified on my behalf:

“You know, he’s, in my opinion, the consummate attorney. He’s a lawyer’s lawyer. He’s a mensch. He is dedicated. He’s passionate about what he does as a matrimonial lawyer.”

“So I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that I’ve never had a professional relationship with anybody of greater integrity, of greater commitment to his clients, to justice and to the practice of the law.”

“[Witness] doesn’t know anyone who has a greater commitment to his clients and the practice of law, including civility, than Petitioner. It was not an accident that so many bar associations and community groups submitted amicus briefs when the severity Petitioner’s suspension was reviewed by the Court of Appeals.”

The Character and Fitness Committee’s Report also read in relevant part:

“Petitioner’s suspension for two years shocked the Bar. He was a man with an impeccable reputation as an ethical and skillful lawyer who was admired by clients, colleagues, the Bench and adversaries. And he had been the victim of an unthinkable betrayal.

However, this Court and the Court of Appeals both had a deeper insight into what had happened. It was the Petitioner’s clients who had been victimized twice over: first by Anthony Galasso’s theft; and second, by Petitioner’s failure to be vigilant. By suspending an attorney as distinguished as Petitioner for two years, the Court reminded him and the Bar just how serious our obligations as fiduciaries really are. Petitioner has learned his lesson. Hopefully the Bar has also. We recommend that Petitioner be reinstated as an attorney and counselor-at-law.”

Notwithstanding my unanimous reinstatement to the Bar in 2015 and the ample evidence of my competence, which is best illustrated in my Firm’s website (), poor ratings from sites like AVVO continue to tarnish my reputation and to disabuse potential clients from retaining me. If not convinced by this posting, a careful reading of the High Court’s full decision in Matter of Galasso, which is linked to this post, will further explicate the disconnection between my suspension and my skills as an attorney.