Staff

Yolanda Cotto received her paralegal certificate from Briarcliff College in April 2003. She is bilingual, speaking fluent English and Spanish. Ms Cotto retired from the NYC Police Department in August 2007. She has worked for the Law Office of Michael L. Pfeifer, P.C. since September 2007. Yolanda Cotto brings a unique background to the position of paralegal, which is especially valuable to our law firm. Her job involves doing something that really helps people, and requires patience, understanding and empathy. Yolanda possesses these characteristics and more. Cotto graduated from the Police Academy in 1988 and served as a Police Officer in the 23rd Precinct serving East Harlem for one year. From there, she served almost seven years in the Criminal Justice Bureau of the Brooklyn Court Section. Her responsibilities in the courts spanned prisoner intake and escort to arraignment preparation to scheduling and payroll. For the next 10 years, Cotto was an auditor in the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Management and Budget and was assigned to the Employee Relations Section of the Police Commissioner's Office after September 11, 2001. In that capacity, she was assigned to the family of a fallen officer of the World Trade Center tragedy. Her other duties included assisting members of the force and their families dealing with medical and personal hardships, participating in confidential internal investigations regarding payroll, and carrying out other auditing duties with regard to time records and payroll of resigned, retired and terminated police personnel. *************************************************************************** Ryan C. Smith is a student at Hofstra University with an expected graduation date of 2010 and a resident of South Ozone Park. Ryan has his eye on continuing his education as a law student. Mr. Smith handles a wide range of duties at the law firm. Answering telephones, scheduling appointments, filing, scanning, greeting clients, setting up client files and performing data entry, Mr. Smith is learning the legal ropes from the ground up. At Hofstra, he majors in political science and minors in legal studies in business. He is a member of the African People Organization, NAACP, and Youth Against Sickle Cell Anemia. In addition to his duties at the law firm, Mr. Smith is a member of the events management team at Hofstra that organizes national and international conferences and providing hospitality for conference guests. On a completely different note, Mr. Smith is a certified entry level architect.