Marc A. Rapaport

Founder & Managing Partner

Email: mrapaport@rapaportlaw.com

Marc Rapaport is the founder and Managing Member of Rapaport Law Firm, PLLC. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, he is a graduate of New York University and Georgetown University Law Center. Marc began his legal career as an attorney with the United States Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. His practice focuses on employment discrimination, commercial litigation, telecommunications issues, and domestic relations. He takes professional pride in the diversity of his clientele and the wide array of civil litigation matters that he handles.

Marc has successfully litigated discrimination, sexual harassment, unpaid wage, FMLA, ADA, and wrongful termination disputes on behalf of both employees and employers. His widely reported success in the case Mena v. Key Food is now the leading legal precedent in jurisdictions throughout the United States regarding the legality of clandestine taping in the workplace. He has effectively represented groups of employees in overtime and unpaid wage claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act and NY Labor Law.

For the past fourteen years, Marc has served as New York counsel for the nation’s second-largest telecommunications carrier. He has extensive experience handling commercial disputes involving telecommunications leases. Marc has negotiated hundreds of rooftop and cellular antenna leases, inside wiring agreements, and antenna tower agreements. Each year, Marc obtains Yellowstone injunctions and other types of court orders that protect the rooftop leaseholds of wireless carriers in New York City.

Marc represents the nation’s largest telecommunications carriers in administrative proceedings regarding compliance with state and local regulations. He has handled hundreds of administrative hearings with the New York City Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH) that involve complex issues regarding compliance of rooftop antenna facilities with the NYC Fire and Building Codes. With decades of experience, Marc is uniquely able to provide our firm’s telecommunications and real estate clients with effective and creative approaches to New York’s complex web of administrative procedures and regulations.

Marc Rapaport was selected as a 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2023 New York Metro Super Lawyer. Super Lawyers, part of Thomson Reuters, is a rating service of outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. Only 5 percent of all lawyers in the State of New York receive this honor.

Recent Victories

Campos v. Aegis Realty Mgmt. Corp., (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 28, 2020)

Our client is a building maintenance worker who was deprived overtime pay that he was entitled to receive under the Fair Labor Standards Act and New York Labor Law. The defendant, his former employer, is a notorious New York City slumlord. In a groundbreaking decision, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York denied defendant’s motion to dismiss our client’s complaint. Defendant argued that our client’s wage claims were barred by a third-party release contained in the building owner’s confirmed bankruptcy plan. The Court ruled in favor of our client, holding that there are factual issues regarding whether the release language encompassed wage claims against joint employers. This decision, which was featured in the New York Law Journal, is just one example of how the attorneys at Rapaport Law Firm have been at the forefront of protecting the rights of immigrant and low-income workers who face pervasive wage theft.

T-Mobile Northeast LLC v. 133 Second Avenue, LLC, April 16, 2019

After court proceedings that spanned ten years, New York’s Appellate Division  (First Department) ruled in favor of Rapaport Law Firm’s client, T-Mobile.  In 2009, the defendant/landlord blocked T-Mobile’s personnel from accessing T-Mobile’s rooftop antenna facility located in the East Village of Manhattan.  The Appellate Division upheld the lower court’s permanent injunction against the defendant.  The Appellate Division also upheld the lower court’s dismissal of the defendant’s frivolous counterclaims.   This case will now proceed to a sanctions hearing against the defendant.   This matter is one of dozens of court cases in which attorneys Marc Rapaport and Meredith Miller have successfully represented the nation’s largest wireless communications carriers.

SBA Monarch v. Hirakis, April 9, 2019

After two years of litigation, the defendant filed a third party complaint alleging that Rapaport Law Firm’s client, a telecommunications carrier, was responsible for damaging the defendant’s commercial building.  The Queens County Supreme Court dismissed the defendant’s third party complaint.  In its decision, the Court held that the defendant failed to follow New York pleading requirements and further ruled that the complaint did not make valid claims for indemnification.

Liz v. 5 Tellers Associates, (E.D.N.Y., April 1, 2021)

The Federal Court approved Rapaport Law Firm’s request for conditional certification of a collective action under the Fair Labor Standards Act on behalf of superintendents and porters working at apartment buildings in the Bronx.  This victory led to a substantial settlement that provided compensation to Rapaport Law Firm’s clients for unpaid overtime and minimum wages.

Education

  • Georgetown University Law Center, J.D., June 1992
  • New York University, B.A., 1989

Bar Admission

  • New York and New Jersey

Court Admissions

  • U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York
  • U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York
  • U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey
  • Second Circuit Court of Appeals

Affiliations

  • New York County Lawyers’ Association
  • New York State Bar Association (Member, Committee on Civil Practice Law and Rules)
  • The Association of the Bar of the City of New York
  • Federal Communications Bar Association
  • Putnam County Home Improvement Board (2000–2002)

Marc Rapaport Featured on The American Law Journal

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