“Experienced” and “aggressive” are the two words every workers’ compensation firm uses to describe itself. What’s harder to find — and what actually matters more for a Staten Island claim — is an attorney who works this specific borough’s system regularly: the same hearing office, the same pool of independent medical examiners insurance carriers send claimants to, and the same mix of local employers and industries where these injuries happen.
At The Law Offices of Frank J. Dito, Jr., we’ve represented injured workers across Staten Island for years, and that local footprint shows up in ways a national or out-of-borough firm simply can’t replicate.
Call 718.701.2776 for a free consultation with a Staten Island-based attorney.
Where Your Hearing Actually Happens
Since October 2024, workers’ compensation hearings in New York are held virtually. You appear by video and so does the law judge. The Board still has a Staten Island location at 60 Bay Street, and you can ask to attend there rather than logging in from somewhere else, but the judge appears by video either way, so it does not change how the hearing itself runs.
What this means practically is that geography no longer decides much about the hearing. It still decides other things.
Staten Island Has Its Own Injury Patterns
The kinds of workplace injuries we see reflect the borough’s actual employers and industries: construction accidents tied to Staten Island’s ongoing residential and commercial development, injuries among healthcare and nursing home staff at the borough’s hospitals and long-term care facilities, injuries connected to the Staten Island Ferry terminal and related transportation work, and warehouse and logistics injuries from the distribution centers along the borough’s major corridors. An attorney who regularly handles Staten Island cases has seen these specific fact patterns before — including which employers and insurance carriers are most active locally, and how they tend to handle disputed claims.
Familiarity With the Carriers and Examiners You’ll Actually Encounter
Insurance carriers frequently rely on a limited pool of independent medical examiners (IMEs) for claims in a given area. An attorney with a strong local practice has likely seen reports from the same examiners before, on other clients’ cases — which makes it easier to recognize a skewed or boilerplate IME report and know how to challenge it effectively, rather than encountering that examiner’s pattern for the first time on your case.
You Can Take the Hearing From Wherever Suits You
Most people take their hearing from home or from work, and that works perfectly well. Nothing about appearing from your kitchen or your car puts a claim at a disadvantage.
A represented claimant also has the option of appearing from their attorney’s office. Some people prefer that, particularly on a day they are going to testify, because there is someone in the room to confer with before answering. Others would rather not make the trip, and that is an equally sensible choice. The point is simply that with a local firm the option is a short drive rather than a reason to take a day off.
The same goes for the parts of a case that are not hearings — going through medical records, preparing testimony, dropping off paperwork rather than mailing it. Some of that is easier in person if being in person is easy.
What to Ask to Confirm an Attorney’s Local Experience
If you’re evaluating firms and want to know how genuinely local their practice is, ask directly: how much of their practice is Staten Island and Brooklyn comp, and whether sitting in with them for a hearing is an option if you ever want it? Do they represent clients across other boroughs primarily, with Staten Island as a smaller part of their practice, or is Staten Island a core part of what they do? For the full list of questions worth asking any workers’ comp attorney — local or otherwise — see our guide to vetting a workers’ comp lawyer.
If You Searched for a Work Accident Lawyer Near You
That search usually means the injury happened recently and nobody has explained what comes next. Here is the short version.
A work injury in New York can involve two separate claims. The first is workers’ compensation, paid by your employer’s insurance carrier. It covers medical treatment and part of your lost wages no matter who caused the accident, including when the fault was your own, and it does not pay anything for pain and suffering.
The second exists only when somebody other than your employer caused the injury — a general contractor, the owner of the building, another subcontractor, a driver, the maker of a defective machine. That one is a personal injury lawsuit, it requires proving fault, and it does cover pain and suffering.
These are not alternatives. Section 11 of the Workers’ Compensation Law bars suing your employer, but Section 29 of the same statute says you may take compensation benefits and sue a third party at the same time. Where both apply, the job is running them together, because the compensation carrier gets a lien on the lawsuit and has to consent before it settles. Construction site injuries are the most common version of this.
The injuries that bring people here are mostly the ordinary ones — falls on wet or uneven floors, repetitive strain from manual work, machinery and equipment injuries, and burns or respiratory injuries from chemical exposure. What the injury is affects both what you can claim and what medical documentation the claim will need.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I have to go somewhere for my hearing?
No. Hearings are virtual, so you attend by video from wherever you are. The Board does have a Staten Island location at 60 Bay Street you can ask to attend in person, and if you are represented you can also appear from your attorney’s office. The judge appears by video in all three cases, so it comes down to where you would rather be sitting.
Is a local Staten Island attorney more expensive than a larger firm elsewhere?
Not necessarily — workers’ comp attorney fees in New York are contingency-based and subject to Workers’ Compensation Board approval regardless of firm size or location, so fee structure isn’t typically where firm size makes a difference.
What if my employer is based outside Staten Island but I live here?
It makes less difference than it used to. Since hearings are virtual, you are not travelling to whichever office the claim is assigned to. Where your employer is based can still affect other parts of the claim, so it is worth mentioning, but it is not a reason to hire a lawyer in another borough.
Do local relationships with insurance carriers and examiners actually change outcomes?
They can, particularly in disputed cases. Recognizing a pattern in how a specific carrier handles claims, or in how a specific examiner writes IME reports, gives an attorney a head start in building an effective response rather than starting from scratch.
If you already have representation and local experience is the piece that is missing, you are not locked in — here is how changing attorneys mid-case works in New York.
Talk to a Staten Island Workers’ Comp Attorney Today
If local experience matters to you — and for a Staten Island claim, it should — call The Law Offices of Frank J. Dito, Jr. at 718.701.2776 (toll-free: 800.310.5520) for a free consultation. You can call or leave a message any time. If we don’t recover money for you, we don’t get paid.
