Richard Alan Sinapi

Richard A. Sinapi is a partner at Sinapi, Formisano & Company, Ltd. He currently concentrates in employment law, including discrimination and harassment claims, unemployment benefits claims, minimum wage and overtime claims, workers' compensation, civil rights, municipal law, governmental affairs, and personal injury. He has over twenty-four (24) years of experience in the general practice of law, including general civil litigation and real estate law, including both trial and appellate work as well as corporate and commercial law advice, representation, document preparation and transaction closings. The scope of his legal experience includes products liability, medical malpractice, family law, banking, zoning and land use, probate law, school law, creditor bankruptcy, business organization, construction law, contract and insurance law, banking law, foreclosures and collections, fair housing, landlord/tenant, tax assessment appeals, tax sales, restrictive covenants, and uninsured motorist claims.

He currently acts as general counsel to a quasi-municipal fire district and in the past has acted as general counsel to a local school committee. He has also practiced in the capacity of court-annexed arbitrator, labor arbitrator, mediator, lobbyist, commissioner of real estate, and as a guardian ad litem.

He is an adjunct professor at Bryant University in the Department of History/Social Sciences, where he teaches classes in Legal Environment of Business and Civil Rights and Liberties. He previously taught a class in Evidence as an adjunct professor at Salve Regina University.

Mr. Sinapi has practiced before the Rhode Island supreme, superior, district, family, workers' compensation, and traffic tribunal courts, as well as before numerous municipal and probate courts and a variety of state administrative agencies including the Rhode Island Commission for Human Rights, as well as various local zoning boards and subdivision and planning boards of review. He is admitted to practice in the courts of the State of Rhode, the Federal District Court in Rhode Island, the First Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court of the United States. He has also practiced in Massachusetts state courts and in federal district courts in Massachusetts, Ohio and Minnesota.

Mr. Sinapi is a suma cum laude graduate of Colby College and a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School. He is a member of the Rhode Island Superior Court Bench/Bar Committee; Workers' Compensation Bench/Bar Committee, American Bar Association, Rhode Island Bar Association, American Association of Justice, and the Rhode Island Association of Justice. He is also a cooperating attorney with the Rhode Island ACLU.