20 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • SEPTEMBER 2021
ATTORNEY NICK PAPAIN OF SULLIVAN PAPAIN BLOCK MCGRATH
Nick Papain, a leading attorney for first responders and survivors of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, visits the 9/11 Memorial in Manhattan. (Photo by Dean Moses)
On Sept. 11, 2001, Nicholas Papain, one of
New York’s most well-respected personal
injury attorneys, was in a Brooklyn
courthouse, waiting to select a jury for
an upcoming trial, when news quickly
spread of the terrorist attacks on Manhattan’s
World Trade Center.
Papain left the courthouse moments
after the South Tower collapsed. From
the courthouse steps, he watched in
disbelief as the North Tower collapsed, a
half hour later. He recalls seeing billows
of smoke covering Lower Manhattan
where the towers once stood.
“I remember looking at my shoulders
and seeing white flakes, which I soon
realized had traveled from Ground
Zero across the East River to the steps
of the Brooklyn courthouse,” Papain
recalls.
With fear and uncertainty surrounding
the attacks, Papain remembers trying,
frantically, to find out if anyone at his
office at 120 Broadway, just a few blocks
from the WTC, had been injured or
killed. While some were caught in the
waves and clouds of dust and debris that
consumed the area when the towers
collapsed, no one at the firm had been
physically hurt. His attention then
turned to the unimaginable grief thousands
would suffer when they learned
a loved one was among the 2,977 who
perished in New York City that day.
Nick Papain is a partner at Sullivan
Papain Block McGrath Coffinas &
Cannavo, P.C., which has 40 who
specialize in representing victims of
negligence and wrongdoing. For more
than four decades, Sullivan Papain has
also served as general counsel to the
Uniformed Firefighters Association
of Greater New York, which has some
20,000 active and retired members.
Papain and his firm had represented
many New York City firefighters in the
past, for injuries and death sustained
in the line of duty, but little did they
know just how important a role the
firm would play in the wake of the
deadliest attack on American soil since
Pearl Harbor.
When the towers collapsed, 343 New
York City firefighters perished while
trying to rescue those who were trapped.
“Our firm has had a very special relationship
with New York City firefighters for
more than 40 years, so their losses really
hit us hard,” Papain says. “I would often
think of how as thousands of people who
worked in the towers were being evacuated,
hundreds of New York City’s bravest
were running up those stairs into harm’s
way, never to be seen again.”
Two days after 9/11, Papain returned to
his office to see if there was any damage
and to retrieve equipment needed to
continue operations at the firm’s Long
Island office.
“I parked my car on the Brooklyn side
of the Brooklyn Bridge, and walked
across,” he recalls. “I was the only one
on the bridge. As I walked towards
Lower Manhattan, there was an eerie
silence and stillness throughout the
usually bustling area. It reminded me
of a scene out of a Day After science
fiction movie.
“It seemed as if I was the only one there,
other than military personnel guarding
the area and first responders engaged
in rescue operations,” he continues.
“Looking up at where the towers once
stood, there was now just smoke and a
burning fire coming out of a hole. That
fire continued to burn for a couple
months. You could smell it as soon as
you exited the subway.”
The rescue efforts soon turned into a
recovery mission, but it would be a long
time before the full impact of the 9/11
terrorist attacks would be known.
In late 2001, Papain’s partner at Sullivan
Papain, Michael Block, helped to
establish the September 11th Victim
Compensation Fund to provide compensation
for the families of those who
had been killed, and for those who had
been seriously injured, as a result of
the terrorists’ attacks. By the time the
fund closed in 2004, Sullivan Papain
had secured more than $260 million
for 363 injured firefighters and families
of fallen firefighters — all for no fee —
FEATURE
“Many have suffered not only physically but mentally
as well,” said Nick Papain
/LONGISLANDPRESS.COM
