by Andy Chen | Jul 5, 2025 | Enterprise, New York
In two of my most recent posts, I went over some of the naming requirements for Limited Liability Companies (LLC) in both California as well as New York. In today’s post, I’ll describe the analogous rule for Name Suffixes for corporations under New York state law. The relevant law here is Section 301(a)(1) of New York’s Business Corporations Law. That section states the following: Except as otherwise provided in this chapter, the name of a domestic or foreign corporation shall contain the word “corporation”, “Incorporated”, or “limited”, or an abbreviation of one of such words; or, in the case of a foreign corporation, it shall, for use in this state, add at the end of its name one of such words or an abbreviation thereof. In other words, yes, New York law requires that a suffix be included in the name of a corporation that indicates that the corporation is indeed a corporation. If you’ve read my prior posts about LLC Name Suffixes in California and New York, you’ll detect a theme: namely, that an entity must include a suffix in its name that indicates what kind of entity it actually is. As with all of my posts, this was not intended to address every possible permutation or possibility that might exist regarding name requirements under New York law for a corporation. If you do have a situation involving a corporation in New York, hopefully this post and the links in it have helped inform you at least a little bit. If you do have a situation involving a corporation in New York, please do consider finding a lawyer...
by Andy Chen | Jul 3, 2025 | Enterprise, New York
In my prior post, I described the naming rules for Limited Liability Companies under California. Nowadays, it is extremely easy to quickly form a Limited Liability Company (LLC) anywhere in the United States for just a moderate fee. LLCs are, thus, much more common now which, unfortunately, also means that there is more opportunity to run afoul of all the rules that LLCs have to follow, including rules about LLC names. Today’s post is the New York counterpart to my prior post. In other words, what suffix does New York law require an LLC to include in its name? The relevant law here is Section 204(a) of the New York Limited Liability Law, which states: The name of each limited liability company as set forth in its articles of organization shall contain without abbreviation the words “Limited Liability Company” or the abbreviation “L.L.C.” or “LLC”. As you can see, this requirement basically is the same as what California law requires. As with California as well, New York law has other requirements for LLC names. These are specified further in Section 204. I’ll go over those requirements in future posts, but feel free to read Section 204 on your own if you wish. As with all of my posts, this was not intended to address every possible permutation or possibility that might exist regarding name requirements under New York law for an LLC. If you do have a situation involving a New York LLC, hopefully this post and the links in it have helped inform you at least a little bit. If you do have a situation involving a New...
by Andy Chen | Apr 24, 2024 | California, Family Law, New York
In this post, I’m going to continue my comparison of how New York and California treat various topics. As with past posts, I’m hoping that you can see how laws differ between states in the US, but also have some similarities as well. The topic today is going to be the grounds or reasons upon which you can seek divorce in California versus New York. New York In my last post, I described the seven different grounds or reasons why you can seek a divorce in New York state. These are summarized in bullet point format below. The relevant statute is section 170 of New York’s Domestic Relations Law. Section 170 is quite long so I’m not going to quote it here verbatim. Please do refer to the precise text of section 170 if you need anything more than what I’m going to paraphrase below: Cruel and inhumane treatment by defendant such that it endangers plaintiff’s physical and mental well-being to remain in the marriage; Defendant abandons plaintiff for at least one year; Defendant is confined in prison for at least three years; Adultery; Spouses living apartment for at least a year pursuant to a judgment of legal separation; Spouses living apart for at least a year pursuant to a written separation agreement; or Spouses with a relationship that has irretrievably broken down for at least 6 months. California To contrast with New York, California’s grounds for divorce are much simpler. There are basically only two grounds: (1) irreconcilable differences, and (2) permanent legal incapacity to make decisions. If you’re looking at a California divorce petition, the grounds for...
by Andy Chen | Apr 22, 2024 | California, Federal, New York
In today’s post, I’m going to try and explain the concept of Discovery in civil cases and what the boundaries or scope of that discovery is. I’ll use some examples from California law as well as New York law and also some tidbits from federal law as well. Depending on the court that your case is in (for instance, California Superior Court versus US District Court), one set of rules and laws will apply, but not the other. Be forewarned, though, that the topic of civil discovery can get very, very, very complicated. Lots of specific requirements apply. It can absolutely get very frustrating. It’s similar to how taxes work and why, for instance, certain tax rules make no logical sense when compared to the real world. The vast majority of people, of course, just follow the rules when it comes to taxes and don’t bother worrying about why tax rules are the way they are. When it comes to discovery, in my opinion, a lot of these complexities are unnecessary and the whole discovery process could be made easier and more efficient without prejudice or harm to any litigant. However, it’s not up to me — at least not yet — and instead it depends on the whims and fancies of politicians and legislatures. It is what it is. Having said that, let me start with a basic definition of what “discovery” actually is: it’s the process in litigation where the various parties can seek or obtain evidence or facts that are relevant to the case. As the adage goes, each party puts all of their cards on...
by Andy Chen | Apr 20, 2024 | New York, Statutes... and stuff
Previously, I blogged about the residency requirements one has to satisfy in order to file a divorce, separation, or annulment case in the state of New York. Today, I’m going to go over another requirement you have to satisfy when filing a divorce case in New York, namely the grounds or reasons for divorce. New York’s residency requirement is described in New York Domestic Relations Law section 230 and is termed a “residency requirements” because, in most states, the requirement generally relates to living in the state in some way. The grounds requirement, though, for divorce in New York relates more to what occurred between the couple and generally involves more complicated questions than just ‘Did the parties live in New York?’ The grounds requirement for divorce in New York is described in New York Domestic Relations Law section 170. There are seven possible grounds. The plaintiff is the spouse filing for divorce. As with a generic “residency requirement”, a plaintiff need only satisfy one of the seven, but each one of the seven may have several components that all need to be met before the ground itself can be invoked. As with my residency requirement post, I’ll indicate each of the components with a letter (e.g. (a), (b), etc). (a) The defendant spouse has treated the plaintiff spouse in a cruel and inhuman way such that (b) this treatment endangers the physical and mental well being of the plaintiff so much that it (c) makes it unsafe or improper for plaintiff to continue cohabiting with defendant; (a) The abandonment of the plaintiff by the defendant for a period...
by Andy Chen | Jul 2, 2023 | Family Law, New York, Statutes... and stuff
I’ve been licensed to practice law in New York since 2012. Unfortunately, I do not maintain an office in New York. This means that I cannot take clients who live in New York due to the NY Court of Appeals‘ 2015 ruling interpreting NY Judiciary Law section 470 in the case of Schoenefeld v. State of New York, et al. That appears to be changing, though. Legislation has been passed by both the New York State Senate and, as of June 7, 2023, the New York State Assembly to repeal Judicial Law Section 470. Stay tuned for updates. Because Section 470 is still in effect, I can’t practice law in the state of New York. However, what I’m going to discuss in this blog post and all my NY blog posts that follow is information any member of the public can look up for themselves. I offer no opinion on whether the particular statute or case I go over is advisable or prudent for their particular situation. My hope is that, even though my blog posts are purely factual, my post will give the enterprising reader an idea or plant a seed for further research that they would otherwise not have had. Put simply: after reading my factual post, maybe you can do more research that didn’t occur to you before and, hopefully, be better off for it. In this post on the laws of the state of New York, I’m going to talk about the residency requirements for a divorce. A residency requirement is the basic idea that in order to file for divorce in a given state...
