Deborah E. Riegel

Practice Areas

Litigation (Commercial)

Litigation (Real Estate)

Landlord Tenant Law

Condominium/Cooperative Law

Professional Memberships

• Brooklyn Law School Board of Trustees, 2022 to Present

• Brooklyn Law School Alumni Association, President, 2022-2024

• Jewish National Fund, Tri-State President, 2021-2023

• Jewish National Fund, New York Board President, 2018-2021

• New York City Bar Association, Member, Committee on the Judiciary

• New York City Bar Association, Committee on Cooperative and Condominium, 2010 - 2013

• New York City Bar Association, Member, Housing Court Committee, 2013-2015

Publications

• "Good Cause Eviction Law: One Year Later, How Judges Have Applied the Law," by Deborah E. Riegel and Gary M. Rosenberg, New York Law Journal, Landlord-Tenant Column, June 2025

• “Managing Manhattan” Podcast - Dylan Pichulik, CEO of premiere property management firm XL Real Property Management takes a look at how to protect the landlord when conducting rental transactions. Deborah Riegel, Podcast Guest, January 2025

• "Legislative Relief for Ground Lease Cooperatives," New York Law Journal, May 2024

• “Guaranty Law Invalidated,” New York Real Estate Law Reporter August 2023

• “NY Rent Recovery Case Adds Structure to Overcharge Claims,” Law360, April 2020

• “Landlords Should Not Waive Small Businesses’ Rent,” Law360, April 2020

• “The HSTPA and Commercial Tenants,” RSA Reporter, December 2019

Personal

Recognitions

• Honored and privileged to have been appointed by Chief Administrative Judge Joseph A. Zayas to the Housing Court Advisory Council, which is charged with the responsibility to review and recommend individuals for appointment and reappointment to the Housing Court, March 2025

Classes & Seminars

• Brooklyn Law School, Adjunct Professor, Residential Landlord-Tenant Law, 2015-Present

• CLE presentation to Housing Court Judges and Court Attorneys - Evidentiary Issues, November 2024

• CLE presentation to Housing Court Judges and Court Attorneys - Good Cause Eviction, December 2024

• Jewish National Fund (JNF) Rent Stabilization Legislation Panel, Speaker, July 2019

• RSA Seminar/Webinar: Managing Rent Regulated Property Non-Payment Proceeding after the HSPTA of 2019, Speaker, March

2020

• Jewish National Fund Luncheon Honoring Supreme Court Justice Jules Spodek, Speaker, January 2020

• Hot Topics in Cooperatives and Condominiums (Instructor), New York City Bar Association, 2010

Expert in these Jurisdictions

Bar Admissions

New York, 1994

U.S. District Court Southern District of New York, 1995

U.S. District Court Eastern District of New York, 1995

U.S. District Court Northern District of New York, 2002

U.S. Supreme Court, 2009

Experience

Riegel has handled complex litigation before New York state and federal trial and appellate courts. Most notably, Riegel was lead counsel and successfully argued before the Court of Appeals in Matter of Regina Metro. Co., LLC v. New York State Div. of Hous. & Community Renewal, a case which is considered to be one of the most impactful decisions for the real estate industry in decades. The Court of Appeals adopted R&E’s arguments and found the enactment of portions of the HSTPA of 2019 to be unconstitutional in their retroactive application, saving property owners millions of dollars in potential rent overcharges and avoiding catastrophic underwriting and financing consequences. That victory was most recently reinforced in another case for which Riegel was lead counsel and argued before the Appellate Division, First Department: Burrows v 75-25 153rd Street, LLC. The Appellate Division again wholly adopted R&E’s arguments and definitively applied the Court of Appeals’ holding in Regina.

Over the course of her career, Riegel has successfully litigated cases of critical, industry-wide importance on a wide variety of complicated issues on behalf of some of the City’s most prominent owners and developers, including Vornado Realty Trust, The Durst Organization, General Growth Properties/Brookfield Properties and A&E Real Estate. Her practice more generally involves litigating matters related to commercial lease disputes, tort and contract actions, construction disputes, cooperative shareholder disputes, rent regulatory issues and residential and commercial landlord/tenant matters. She also provides counsel to cooperatives and condominiums on a wide range of matters. Riegel’s client base ranges from small owners of residential property to major residential and commercial developers, and her practice has given her a broad spectrum of experience representing clients in every Court from the Civil Court of the City of New York to the New York State Court of Appeals, as well as the United States District Court, United States Bankruptcy Court, and the United States Court of Appeals. While her practice is primarily focused on litigation, Riegel works with clients on development issues and has successfully vacated a number of development sites in Manhattan.

Riegel also works with clients, with the support of the firm’s highly experienced Transactional Group, on purchase and sale agreements, leasing and construction management so as to provide a one-stop, integrated approach to managing clients’ legal needs with an eye toward risk management and early dispute resolution.

Riegel was previously a member of the Committee on Cooperative and Condominium Law and the Housing Court Committee of the New York City Bar and currently serves on its Judiciary Committee.

Riegel’s approach to working with clients and resolving disputes was shaped by her work in private industry prior to attending law school, as well as her position as a legislative aide in the New York State Assembly. These experiences taught her the need to recognize the real-world value of a case to a client, and that negotiation and compromise are often the most valuable skills in litigation.

Work Highlights

In Burrows v 75-25 153rd Street, LLC (“Burrows”), the Appellate Division, First Judicial Department unanimously reversed the lower court and dismissed the tenants’ putative rent overcharge class action in its entirety, while making significant rulings for owners in New York that are fighting claims of fraud and defending rent concession or “net effective rent” claims. The landlord’s predecessor openly registered both initial legal regulated rents and lower preferential rents with DHCR in 2007 in a building receiving 421-a tax benefits. In 2020, some 13 years after the initial DHCR registrations were filed, tenants of the building commenced a putative rent overcharge class action against the current landlord, following a pattern of class actions brought by tenants against landlords claiming fraud. Here, the tenants claimed that the landlord’s predecessor engaged in fraud in registering the initial legal rents in 2007, because the law prohibited the use of preferential rents for initial tenants in 421-a buildings. Riegel moved to dismiss the claims, arguing that the tenants’ belated challenges to the initial DHCR registrations were time-barred by the applicable four-year statute of limitations. Riegel further argued that the tenants could never establish the only “fraud exception” to the statute of limitations because fraud requires “reliance,” and here, the tenants could not have reasonably relied on the alleged errors in the initial registrations as a matter of law, because any error was plain on the face of registrations in 2007, and tenants failed to bring a claim until 2020. The First Department agreed and dismissed the case.

In Regina Metro. Co., LLC v New York State Div. of Hous. and Community Renewal, 35 NY3d 332 (2020) (“Regina”), affirming sub nom Reich v. Belnord Partners LLC, 168 AD3d 482 (1st Dept 2019), Riegel successfully moved to dismiss the plaintiffs’ J-51 rent overcharge complaint, asserted outside of the applicable statute of limitations and more than six years after the seminal Roberts decision. Riegel successfully defended the decision, which was affirmed by the Appellate Division, First Department. After plaintiffs were granted leave to appeal to the Court of Appeals, the Legislature then enacted the HSTPA, which applied to all pending cases and would have altered the result of the action by expanding the statute of limitations. Riegel was successful in defending the dismissal of the action, persuading the Court of Appeals that the HSTPA did not revive time-barred claims and, critically, that retroactive application of the HSTPA to conduct that occurred prior to its enactment was unconstitutional - a landmark decision for the New York real estate industry.

In DOLP 1133 Properties II LLC v. Amazon Corp. LLC, 2020 NY Slip Op 30274(U) (Sup Ct, New York County 2020), The Durst Organization sought damages against Amazon for breaching the exclusivity provision of a letter of intent concerning a major office lease. Riegel successfully obtained an order granting partial summary judgment in favor of Durst on the issue of Amazon’s liability for breaching the LOI, which induced Amazon to resolve Durst’s claim for damages. In Mahmood v Mason Mgt. Services Corp. d/b/a Stellar Manage ment et al., 2019 NY Slip Op 32175(U) (Sup Ct, New York County 2019), a putative class action lawsuit that was commenced by approximately 60 tenants against Stellar Management regarding more than a dozen buildings, Riegel successfully obtained dismissal of the action against both Stellar’s principal, Larry Gluck, and Stellar Management because the plaintiffs failed to sue direct owners of the buildings, and instead only sued a management company.

Career

Deborah E. Riegel joined Rosenberg & Estis, P.C. in 1994 and is a Member with the firm’s Litigation Department.

Languages Spoken

Hebrew

Education

Awards