Nicholas W. Lobenthal

Spear’s Review

Nicholas W. Lobenthal has been at Teitler & Teitler for more than two decades, focusing on large and complex family law cases for HNWs.

As a partner, he is proud of the firm’s transatlantic reputation for ‘technical knowledge and fearlessness’. He tells Spear’s that its lawyers also have the skills and determination to successfully reach settlements and keep matters out of court.

Lobenthal believes in the power of boutique firms, noting that the business model allows ‘the maximum amount of independence and flexibility to represent your client. If you represent a person who owns a firm with a real estate holding, within a firm that has a real estate practice – there’s just going to be tension,’ he says. ‘But if you’re independent, you’re only thinking about your own client, and that’s it. That’s a good thing.’

Adviser Profile

The HNWs that attorney Nicholas W. Lobenthal advises are likely to be embroiled in disputes ranging from asset valuations involving complex and even unique challenges to linkages with multiple jurisdictions. ‘They may own a closely held business, one-of-a-kind art or real estate, have contingent or conditional interests, benefit from trusts, and manage restricted investments – right there, multiple issues, any of which you would call complex and all of which together are the proper subject of advocacy and close analysis.’

After a background in commercial litigation, Lobenthal has spent 25 years focusing on family law, including evidentiary hearings and appeals in United States and New York State courts. He admires the fact that second-generation Michael Teitler has worked at the firm since the nineteen-sixties, and that he works alongside the third generation, John Teitler. ‘Multi-generations working side by side is a model of successful resolution of family issues,’ he says. ‘The ampersand in the firm name is evidence of our understanding of families.’

A Columbia University law honors graduate, where he served as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Law and Social Problems and earned the Wertheimer Prize for labor/employment law, he has been awarded the highest possible Martindale-Hubbell rating (“AV Preeminent” with input from members of the judiciary) and repeatedly recognised by his peers as a ‘Superlawyer.’ He represents a mix of domestic and international financial institutions, business organisations and individual clients in family law prenuptial negotiations and litigations and commercial litigation.

An elected Fellow of the International Academy of Family Lawyers, he has lectured on hedge fund valuation and civil rights and jointly contributed to the international family law treatise, Family Law: A Global Guide (Thomson Reuters 5th ed. 2021/Westlaw).