Gustavo Alzugaray

About Gustavo

When someone is hurt in an accident, the injury is only part of what turns their life upside down. Almost overnight come the medical bills, missed paychecks, insurance adjusters, and a legal system that can feel like it was built for everyone except them. Gustavo Alzugaray became a lawyer to stand on the other side of that: to be a voice for people whose lives were changed unnecessarily because someone else was careless.

Gustavo has been with Jacoby & Meyers since 2005. Before representing injured people, he saw these cases from the other direction, first as a criminal defense attorney with the Legal Aid Society in Kings County, then as a trial attorney defending insurance companies in personal injury cases.

Gustavo’s experience taught him exactly how the other side thinks: how insurers value a claim, where they push, and what it takes to move them. He has spent every year since putting that knowledge to work for injured people.

Gustavo’s Role at Jacoby & Meyers

As a partner and the managing attorney of the firm’s Bronx office, Gustavo handles personal injury cases from the first client meeting through resolution, whether at trial, in mediation, or through arbitration. He is a trial lawyer at heart and is ready to take a case to a jury when the other side refuses to treat his client fairly. That willingness matters: insurers know which attorneys will settle for less to avoid a courtroom, and which won’t.

Gustavo continues to sharpen his trial skills through advanced advocacy programs. These include the National Institute for Trial Advocacy in Chicago, the Trial Lawyers College, and trial advocacy courses in Philadelphia and South Carolina.

Cases Gustavo Handles

Gustavo’s practice covers the serious injury cases that most affect working families in and around the Bronx, including:

• Commercial and motor vehicle collisions, where liability and the true extent of an injury are often disputed
• Trip-and-fall and premises liability claims, which frequently turn on close questions of notice and property maintenance
• Construction accidents, involving New York’s strong Labor Law protections for injured workers
• Nursing home neglect and other negligence cases, including those involving vulnerable people harmed by someone else’s failure to keep them safe

He brings the same approach to every case: build it carefully, prepare it as though it’s going to trial, and never let an insurance company decide what a client’s claim is worth.

What Clients Can Expect

Gustavo believes in building a real relationship with the people he represents. From the beginning, he wants each client to feel they have an advocate standing with them through every step, not just a name on a file. He keeps clients informed with frequent updates on where their case stands and what’s coming next, so they feel heard and understood.

Gustavo also values being able to speak with clients in their own language. Helping Spanish-speaking clients is especially rewarding for him. For many of them, discussing their case with their attorney in Spanish is the difference between feeling like a spectator and feeling like a participant in their own claim. Si usted ha sido lesionado en un accidente y necesita ayuda legal, comuníquese con Gustavo.

The most meaningful moments of his work come from those relationships. When a client says they consider him family, or that their settlement will change their life, it means more to him than any single result.

Why Gustavo Does This Work

Having spent time on the defense side, Gustavo knows how easily an injured person can be outmatched by an insurer with more resources and every incentive to pay as little as possible. Leveling that fight, and reminding clients they aren’t facing it alone, is what drives him.

Case Stories

Some of the cases Gustavo finds most rewarding are those brought against the City of New York. They demand patience, because the process is often long and tedious, but staying the course has led to significant results for his clients.

$3.5 Million Settlement: Scaffold Fall at a Bronx Construction Site

Working alongside Managing Partner Andrew Finkelstein, Gustavo helped resolve a case for a worker who fell 15 feet from a scaffold at a Bronx job site and needed surgery on his ankle and back.

$250,000 Jury Verdict After a $45,000 Offer

Two insurance companies offered a combined $45,000 to settle a motor vehicle case on behalf of a wife and mother injured as a passenger. Gustavo rejected the offer, tried the case before a Bronx jury, and secured a $250,000 verdict.

$1 Million Settlement: Nursing Home Neglect

As part of the firm’s nursing home team, Gustavo helped obtain a $1,000,000 settlement for a client neglected at a Bronx nursing facility.

Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Every case is different, and results depend on the specific facts involved.

Community Involvement

On behalf of the firm, Gustavo has helped sponsor moot court competitions, Student Law Days, and student backpack giveaways, investing in the next generation and in the community he serves.