About Cardinale & DelVecchio Law Firm

Who we are

Cardinale & DelVecchio is a general practice serving Onondaga and Cortland counties. Most of our work is personal injury, traffic and driving matters, and uncontested divorce. We also handle criminal defense, real estate closings and bankruptcy.

A speeding ticket and a serious injury are not the same problem and we do not pretend otherwise. What they have in common is that somebody has to actually look at the paperwork, and that the person who looks at it should be able to explain what they found in language you can act on.

What a firm this size is for

There are advantages to a large firm and we are not one of them. What a two-partner office gives you instead is specific:

• You speak to an attorney. Not an intake team, not a screening script, and not a different person each time you call.
• You can walk in. Both offices take walk-ins during business hours. It is a small thing until you are holding a court notice with a date on it and want somebody to look at it today.
• You get told when you do not need us. Some matters are genuinely better handled without a lawyer, and the court system publishes free packets for several of them. Saying so costs us a fee and keeps the advice worth having.

In the same two counties since 2000

Longevity on its own proves very little. What it produces that is worth having is familiarity with how these particular courts run, and in Central New York that varies more than people expect. Onondaga County has Syracuse City Court plus a long list of town and village courts; Cortland County has fifteen town courts and a city court. Many sit on limited evening schedules. Knowing which is which changes how quickly a matter can be resolved and how many trips you make.

We keep the full court lists published, with addresses and phone numbers, for Onondaga County and Cortland County, because people need them whether or not they hire us.

How this website is written

Worth a paragraph, because a lot of legal websites are not written this way. Where a page states a rule, a penalty, a fee or a deadline, it cites the source, the statute, the DMV, or the court system, and it carries the date the figure was checked.

That is not fussiness. New York changed the serious injury threshold and the comparative fault rule for car accident claims in May 2026, deleted a whole category of qualifying injury, and adjusted the child support and maintenance income caps on March 1, 2026. A great deal of what is published online, on law firm sites included, still describes the previous versions. Pages that carry their sources can be checked and can be corrected.

None of it is advice about your situation, and it does not substitute for a conversation. It is meant to let you arrive at that conversation knowing something.

The attorneys

Michael R. Cardinale

Partner & Attorney

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John A. DelVecchio

Partner & Attorney

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Two offices

One in Cicero, about ten miles north of downtown Syracuse on Brewerton Road, and one in Cortland on West Road, which is Route 281. Both are open Monday to Friday, both take walk-ins, keep Saturday available by appointment, and have free parking.

Which one you use is a question of which drive is shorter rather than which case you have — both handle the same work. And plenty of matters never require a visit at all.

Questions people ask about the firm

How big is the firm?

Small, and deliberately. Two partners, a support team, and two offices in Central New York. It means the person you speak to about your case is generally the person handling it, which is the main practical difference between a firm this size and a large one.

Will I actually speak to an attorney?

Yes. There is no call center between you and the lawyers, and no intake script that hands you off three times. For most matters you can walk into either office during business hours and sit down with somebody without an appointment.

How long has the firm been here?

Since 2000, in the same two communities. What that is worth is specific rather than sentimental: familiarity with how these particular courts actually run, which varies more between a town court and a city court than most people expect, and which changes how quickly a matter gets resolved.

What do the Google reviews say?

There are 361 of them across the two offices, averaging 4.9 between them. We publish a selection exactly as clients wrote them, typos included and unedited, because a page of polished testimonials is not evidence of anything. Read them and judge for yourself.

Do you charge for the first conversation?

No, in every area we practice and at both offices. There is no obligation afterwards either. If the answer is that you do not need a lawyer, or that we are not the right firm, that is what you will be told.

Can we meet if I cannot get to an office?

Yes. Remote meetings by FaceTime, Skype or Zoom are available for any matter and at either office. A good deal of our work, traffic tickets and uncontested divorces especially, never requires anybody to come in at all, so ask before you arrange the trip.

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