Family Office
Counsel
A Manhattan boutique for principals who need one senior legal relationship across disputes, transactions, risk, and sensitive family matters.
How the
Relationship
Works
Family offices concentrate risk in a small number of relationships and decisions. Traditional law-firm structures handle discrete assignments, not continuous visibility — advice becomes siloed and time is lost in the gaps between specialists. Fragmentation arrives at exactly the moment coherence matters most.
Snyder provides one relationship with visibility across the full picture: screening, triaging, and intervening directly — coordinating specialist expertise under a single strategy, not referring it out.
Courts, counterparties, capital, and regulators all concentrate here. Having senior counsel already embedded in that environment changes the response time and the outcome.
A continuing relationship that builds working knowledge of the family's principals, counterparties, and pressure points — so response is calibrated, not cold-started.
Facts developed carefully, communications handled with discipline — so that if escalation becomes necessary, the family is not starting from behind.
When specialist expertise is needed, Snyder draws on the Harvard Law Solo & Boutique Network and a tested bench of affiliated counsel — under a single strategy.
Without a single coordinating relationship, fragmentation arrives at exactly the moment coherence matters most.
Traditional law-firm structures handle discrete assignments — advice becomes siloed and time is lost in the gaps between specialists.
One relationship. Snyder screens, triages, and intervenes directly — coordinating specialist expertise under a single strategy.
Six recurring situations where continuity, speed, and coordinated judgment materially change the result.
Pre-dispute positioning, litigation management, settlement design and direct intervention when pressure is building. Built for matters where conflict is affecting leverage, timing and decision-making.
Problems with too many moving parts for ordinary legal handling. Where multiple advisors, contested facts and cross-domain pressures converge, one coherent strategy prevails.
Direct counsel for highly sensitive matters affecting principals or family members — disputes, confidentiality issues, and situations requiring discretion, speed and careful handling.
Support on acquisitions, financings, restructurings, workouts and distressed situations where asset value, debt pressure and execution risk are all in play.
Counsel on transactions, structures, governance matters and negotiated outcomes where legal judgment must stay connected to business reality and the client's strategic interests.
Matters involving financial dislocation, capital pressure and opportunistic transactions where the value is coordinated judgment across structure, leverage and execution.
One Person.
Full Picture.
Every Matter.
Direct relationship with the principal or designated family office leadership. Single point of contact for all New York legal matters. Careful triage — what Snyder handles directly, what is referred to specialists, and what requires no action at all.
For offices based outside New York, Snyder is the local node — physically present when presence matters. Court appearances, closings, counterparty meetings, depositions. For offices already in Manhattan, the value is independent judgment on matters that don't fit neatly into any single firm's lane.
When a matter requires full litigation engagement, Snyder steps into first-chair or quarterback roles directly. No ramp-up period. Context is already in place. Execution begins immediately.
Talent guided by experience. Each member strengthens a different dimension of the platform's capacity.
Snyder is the senior coordinating legal mind for principals and family offices when the situation exceeds ordinary legal silos. Engaged when the client needs one relationship with visibility across transactions, disputes, and pressure situations — without being handed off.
Known for judgment under pressure and trial-ready thinking across two decades of federal practice. Founder of Agnes Intelligence, which placed 4th of more than 1,000 entries in the 2018 North America IBM Watson Build competition — the same capacity for structured analysis under adversarial conditions that drives his legal work.
Extends the platform's reach in cross-border transactions, corporate structuring and governance. More than twenty years of experience across New York and Hong Kong. Fluent in multiple languages; regularly represents foreign high-net-worth individuals and family offices in the United States.
Forensic and analytical lead supporting factual reconstruction, financial modeling, damages analysis and matter coordination. Strengthens the practice's investigative and execution capacity. Co-author of Rocket Docket Practice.
per month, flat.
Standing monthly retainer. Select roster. Scoped engagements available for discrete matters.
Fees are negotiated based on the particular circumstances of the engagement.
The roster is limited by design. Snyder personally stewards each relationship — bringing over two decades of federal courtroom experience and a practice that integrates litigation, capital, and institutional design.
Initial conversations are conducted privately and on a confidential basis.
Coordinated judgment.
When it matters most.
Manhattan · New York