Mark J. Eberle

Prior to becoming an attorney, Mr. Eberle was an officer of Republic National Bank, N.A., first working in its retail branch operations and then in its Legal Department, as liaison to the retail branches and factoring divisions and in providing support to the anti-money laundering and litigation teams.

Mr. Eberle advises his clientele on estate planning, including forms of domestic and foreign asset protection trusts. Mr. Eberle takes the necessary time and provides the appropriate attention to detail to ensure that he fully understands the wishes of his clients in his preparations of their wills, trusts, powers of attorney, health care directives, and other estate planning tools.

Mr. Eberle has counseled his clients in the proper management of their roles as executor, personal representative, administrator, trustee, and guardian and, at his clients’ request, he has served as their executor, trustee, trust protector and as a member of their investment advisory committee. Mr. Eberle has also served as a member of the board of directors of his clients’ charitable foundations and other nonprofits.

Mr. Eberle also has extensive experience in representing his clients in the litigation of complex trust and estate and intra-family and multi-jurisdictional disputes, including those involving allegations of financial fraud by family members, caretakers, and business colleagues. Mr. Eberle has represented his corporate and individual clients, in their capacity as trustee, executor and administrator, in probate, administration, and construction proceedings, including defending against will contests, prosecuting turnover proceedings, pursuing the judicial settlement of fiduciary accountings, and in enforcing the intended interpretation of will and trust provisions. Moreover, Mr. Eberle has represented his clients as fiduciaries and/or beneficiaries in federal and state court with respect to proceedings involving foreign forced heirship, undue influence, breach of fiduciary and fraudulent conveyance claims. Mr. Eberle has also handled contested guardianship proceedings throughout New York State.

Over his years of practice, Mr. Eberle has developed a reputation for being able to resolve multi-year trust and estate litigations that prior counsel could not. Indeed, Mr. Eberle takes great pride in his ability to come in as the second, third or even fourth attorney to bring a swift and amicable resolution to these multi-year litigations by presenting creative solutions. On several occasions, Mr. Eberle’s “adversary” counsel in such matters have thereafter retained Mr. Eberle to represent their clients in other similar trust and estate disputes.

Examples of Mr. Eberle’s successful resolution of complex trust, estate and guardianship litigations include:

• Effective prosecution of a Surrogate’s Court turnover proceeding involving financial fraud by the decedent’s business partner and friend, which resulted in a $8.7 million settlement in favor of the decedent’s children.
• The prosecution and then successful mediation of a multi-jurisdictional (New York, Florida, Massachusetts and California), three-decade old, family dispute between the five children of a decedent’s four former spouses and the decedent’s surviving spouse resulting in a multimillion-dollar confidential settlement in favor of the five children.
• After commencing a New York State guardianship proceeding under Article 81 of the Mental Hygiene Law, successfully negotiating the settlement between the incapacitated person’s children regarding the handling of their mother’s affairs, including promoting a joint guardianship. Concurrently, Mr. Eberle was instrumental in resolving a four-decade dispute between the siblings over the control of three family corporations, including the proper assignment between them of patents and other intellectual property.
• Substituting as counsel and then reaching settlement of a 40-year estate dispute between two sisters over the control of their parents’ two New York hotels, which resulted in an eight-figure buyout to Mr. Eberle’s client.
• Successful dismissal of the objections to probate of a decedent’s will by the decedent’s son. See Matter of Shui Yuk Mak Chin, 153 A.D.3d 628, 57 N.Y.S.3d 421 (2d Dept. 2017).
• Recouping in favor of the surviving family members of a deceased company owner, millions of dollars of cash and other assets, including fraudulently conveyed real estate. (Since the beginning of his career, Mr. Eberle has been deeply involved in bringing litigation against the perpetrators of fraud and abuse, including defendants as diverse as investment advisors, home care attendants, former fiduciaries, former counsel, neighbors and family members.)
• Obtaining the elimination of hundreds of thousands of dollars of New York State estate tax penalties for an executor’s late filing of a New York State estate tax return nine years after the filing due date.
• Representing an individual wrongfully alleged to be a New York domiciliary, Mr. Eberle obtained the complete dismissal and sealing of a New York guardianship proceeding, which was commenced by a nephew, so that he could gain control over her assets, which included restaurants and a limousine company. As a result of the hard-fought dismissal, the client’s medical and financial records were permanently sealed and the client was able to maintain control of her life and finances in Arizona.