Hall of Fame

Hofstra Law Impact

• Established the APALSA/LALSA Scholarship with fellow alum, Fusae Nara ’91 (2013).
• Member of the Dean’s Advisory Board (2013-2018).
• Adjunct faculty member, teaching Advanced Bankruptcy Law (2017-2019).

Career Highlights

John Bae is a partner in the Business Restructuring, Creditors' Rights & Bankruptcy practice group at Thompson Hine LLP in New York, New York. He focuses his practice on representing clients in large, complex, and litigious bankruptcies, as well as strategic transactions that use the bankruptcy process to achieve business objectives.

Bae has extensive transactional and litigation experience and has developed particular experience in mass tort-related bankruptcies and out-of-court restructurings, including restructurings related to asbestos liability. He also serves as a general advisor for both domestic and foreign clients in a multitude of areas including corporate and financing transactions and litigation matters.

Prior to joining Thompson Hine, Bae was a partner at an international law firm.

Bae has been selected to the New York Metro Super Lawyers from 2007-2021 and is a recipient of the Burton Award for Legal Excellence.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Established, with Mark L. Claster ’77, the Andrew M. Boas and Mark L. Claster Distinguished Professorship of Law (1986).
• Has funded the Child and Family Advocacy Fellowship along with Mark L. Claster, ’77 since its establishment in 2002.
• Recipient of the Law School’s Distinguished Alumni Award (2000).

Career Highlights

Andrew M. Boas is a General Partner of Carl Marks Management Company where he currently serves as Co-Chair of the Board of Carl Marks and on its Executive and Investment committees.

He began his career at Carl Marks & Co in 1980. In 1987 he founded Carl Marks Management Company to carry on the firm’s credit investment activities. From inception, he has been one of its principal investment officers and has served on the Boards of Directors of many of its portfolio companies.

Boas is an active member of his community and has a particular interest in not-for-profit organizations in education and economic empowerment. He chairs the Achievement First Network Support Board and is President of the Charter Oak Challenge Foundation and the Carl Marks Foundation. He also serves on the boards of ConnCAN, Hunter College – School of Education and the Edith and Carl Marks JCH of Bensonhurst.

Boas earned his BA in Economics from Cornell University.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Member of the Vision 2020 Campaign Leadership Board.
• Family named the Wilbur F. Breslin Center for Real Estate Studies.
• Hofstra Law legacy family — Justin Breslin ’21, his son, is also an alum.

Career Highlights

Kenneth Breslin has been President of Breslin Realty Development Corp. located in Garden City, Long Island, for over 10 years. During that time, the firm has focused on retail growth across the tri-state area and has represented well over 100 national and regional retail clients, including The Home Depot, Stop n Shop, Lowe’s Home Improvement, Walmart, T.J. Maxx, Trader Joe’s, Orange Theory, PM Pediatrics and Starbucks Coffee.

Breslin Realty has widespread experience in tenant relations, negotiations, landlord representation, land planning and development, real estate appraising, property management, construction, and creative financing. With extensive knowledge of the New York tri-state area and consumer purchasing habits, the company offers expert retail leasing services, providing specialist brokers for a variety of national retailers.

Breslin founded Breslin Realty Inc., the brokerage division for Breslin Realty Development Corp, and in 2011 launched and co-founded Sabre Real Estate Group. His professional affiliations include serving as a Director of the Long Island Real Estate Group and the Association for a Better Long Island.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Member of the Vision 2020 Campaign Leadership Board, and recipient of the Outstanding Women in Law Award (2016).
• Established, with her firm, the Burner Law Group Annual Scholarship (2019), and helped establish the Alan N. Resnick Endowed Scholarship in honor of his 40th anniversary of teaching at Hofstra Law (2016).
• Created and taught the first Elder Law course at Hofstra Law (2011).

Career Highlights

Nancy Burner is the founder of Burner Law Group‚ P.C. established in 1995, which concentrates its practice in the areas of estate planning, trust and estate administration and litigation, real estate, guardianship and elder law. She holds the designation of a Certified Elder Law Attorney (CELA), awarded by the National Elder Law Foundation as accredited by the American Bar Association.

Since 2014‚ Burner has been selected by her peers to be included in Best Lawyers in America for Elder Law. Most recently in 2020‚ she was named as the Long Island Elder Law Attorney of the year by this same publication.

In 2016‚ she was named as a Big Apple Entrepreneur winner by Manhattan Magazine. She is also a past president of the Suffolk County Women’s Bar Association and a past co-chair of the Suffolk County Elder Law Committee. 

Hofstra Law Impact

• Established the prestigious Burton Awards, recognizing excellence in law.
• Breakfast with the Dean Speaker.

Career Highlights

William C. Burton is a partner at Sagat|Burton LLP, New York. He is the Founder and Chairman of the Burton Awards Program. He has served as a New York State Assistant Attorney General and an Assistant New York State Special Prosecutor. For fifteen years, he was the Director of Government Affairs for Continental Insurance, then one of the largest international insurance companies.

He is the author of “Burton’s Legal Thesaurus,” the first and only reference book of its kind written for the legal profession. The book is now in its sixth edition. When it was published forty-one years ago, Mr. Burton was given a prestigious award by the Association of American Publishers which declared the book “One of the most Creative and Innovate Projects of the Year.”

In 1999, Mr. Burton created the Burton Foundation and established the non-profit Burton Awards Program with the initial goal of encouraging clear and comprehensive legal writing and rewarding other monumental achievements in law. In 2010, Mr. Burton was awarded the prestigious Golden Pen Award by the Legal Writing Institute, the second largest organization of law professors in the United States with 3,000 members. The honor was given for his advocacy and impact on legal writing. Later in 2011, he was presented the “Blackstone Award” by the Friends of the Law Library of Congress for embodying and promoting the best ideals of the venerable institution. He was a Legal Reform Award recipient from the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform in the fall of 2017.

Mr. Burton is the recipient of the 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Legal Writers comprised of more than 2,700 jurists, professors and practitioners. The award was previously presented to U.S. Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Paul Stevens, and Stephen Breyer, and other prominent award winners.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Established the Cerchione Family Endowed Scholarship (2021).
• Established the Gregory T. Cerchione Annual Scholarship (2015-2021).
• Hofstra Law legacy family — Gregory J. Cerchione ’19, his son, is also an alum.

Career Highlights

Gregory T. Cerchione is a principal in Subin Associates, LLP, one of New York’s premier personal injury law firms, protecting the rights of those who have been injured due to the negligence of others since 1954.

He has served in leadership positions of numerous bar groups, including as President of the Brooklyn Bar Association, President of the Columbian Lawyers Association of Brooklyn, and President of the Catholic Lawyers Guild, and on the Board of Directors of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association. He served as a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation from 2003-2018.

Cerchione has received widespread honors and accolades for his professional and charitable endeavors, including the Annual Award from the Brooklyn Bar Association in 2007, the Distinguished Service Award from the Brooklyn Bar Association from 1996-2000, Award of Meritorious Service from the Catholic Lawyers Guild of Brooklyn in 2005, and a Special Recognition Award from the Brooklyn Woman's Bar Association in 2003.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Established the Andrew M. Boas and Mark L. Claster Distinguished Professor of Law (1986).
• Funded the Child and Family Advocacy Fellowship, along with Andrew Boas, since its establishment in 2002.
• Chairman of the board at Northwell Health during the creation of Hofstra’s medical school.

Career Highlights

Mark Claster is a leading executive in the investment, consulting, and healthcare industries. He started his career with Olin and Phillips where he specialized in Trusts and Estates, Tax and Corporate Law. He then joined Carl Marks & Co., one of America’s oldest merchant banks, where he held positions of increasing responsibility and was appointed President in 1995. He led the overall firm, which has interests across real estate, advisory, and other investment affiliates, until 2020 when he transitioned to Co-Chair of the Board and member of the Executive and Investment Committees.

Claster continues to serve as the Co-Managing Partner of Carl Marks Advisors, a fully integrated and nationally recognized operational and investment banking advisory firm where he leads its work in healthcare, and as President of Carl Marks Securities LLC.

He is the immediate past Chairman of Northwell Health, New York State’s largest and premier health system with more than 75,000 employees, 23 hospitals, and over 800 ambulatory sites. Under his leadership, Northwell grew from $8 billion to $13 billion in annual revenue. Claster led the revitalization of Northwell’s governance, reducing board membership from 135 people to 35, as well as the rebranding of the health system from North Shore-LIJ Health System to Northwell Health. He remains on the board of Northwell and serves as a Special Advisor to Northwell and its CEO.

Claster’s other philanthropic board commitments are focused on youth development in the United States and Israel.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Recipient of the Outstanding Women in Law Award (2016).
• Member of Hofstra University’s Planned Giving Professional Advisors' Council.

Career Highlights

Ilene Sherwyn Cooper is a partner at Farrell Fritz P.C., where she practices litigation and estate planning in Surrogate’s Courts throughout the metropolitan area. Before joining Farrell Fritz, she served for ten years as the Chief Law Assistant of the Suffolk County Surrogate’s Court. She is a graduate of Cornell University.

Cooper is a Fellow of the American College of Trusts and Estates Council (ACTEC). She is a member of the Executive Committee and several other committees of the New York State Bar Association’s Trusts & Estates Law Section, and a Board Member, Fellow, member of the Grants Committee and Co-Chair of the Development Committee of the New York Bar Foundation. She is also a member of the New York City Bar Association’s Estate and Gift Taxation Committee.

Cooper is a past President of the Suffolk County Bar Association and a former Board Member of the Suffolk County Women’s Bar Association. She was a member of the New York State Grievance Committee for the 10^th Judicial District from 2006-2013.

Cooper writes the Trusts and Estates Update column for the New York Law Journal, the Case Notes column in the New York State Bar Association’s Trusts and Estates Law Section newsletter, and is a columnist for the Suffolk County Bar Association’s publication, the Suffolk Lawyer. In 2002, she published a textbook entitled “Wills, Trusts and Estates—Essential Tools for the New York Paralegal.”

Cooper has been named a Best Lawyer in America in Litigation – Trusts & Estates annually since 2013, and she received Lawyer of the Year on Long Island in her area of practice in 2019 and 2021. She has been named a Super Lawyer in Estates & Trust Litigation annually since 2008; in 2020, she was one of the Top 50 Women in the New York Metro Area, and in 2019 and 2020, she was one of the Top 100 in the region. Cooper was recognized by Long Island Business News as “Who’s Who in Women in Professional Services” in both 2010 and 2013.

Cooper is a Board Member of The Safe Center and Suffolk County Child Care Council. She is on the Advisory Committee of Friends of Karen and is an appointed member of the Museum of Modern Art’s Friends of Education Committee and a member of Nassau County Museum of Art’s Annual Ball/Journal Committee.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Member of the Hofstra University Board of Trustees (1982-2007), Chair (1989-1991), Chair Emeritus (2008-2020).
• Endowed the Barbara & Maurice A. Deane Endowed Distinguished Academic Scholarship (1989), and endowed the Maurice A. Deane Distinguished Professorship in Constitutional Law (1985).
• Provided a $20 million gift to the Law School — the largest single gift in the history of the University, at that time — which resulted in the renaming of the Law School to the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University (2011).

Career Highlights

Maurice A. Deane was a Board of Trustee chair emeritus, philanthropist, business leader and dedicated and generous law school alumnus.

During his 26-year career with Endo Laboratories, he helped build the firm into one of the largest privately held pharmaceutical companies in the nation and facilitated its eventual sale to DuPont. After the sale, Deane was named President of the company, which operated as an independent subsidiary, until his retirement eight years later. He continued to serve on Endo’s Board of Directors for several years after his retirement.

At the age of 50, Deane enrolled in the Hofstra School of Law and became an exceptional student who graduated first in his class. He was a mentor and personal and professional role model to his classmates and was an active and engaged member of his class. At the 1981 commencement exercise, he received awards for both constitutional law and evidence. The award currently bestowed on the law school valedictorian each year at graduation is now named the Maurice A. Deane Award in his honor.

Deane participated in the Alumni Mentor Program, served on committees for a number of key events, including the University’s 75th Anniversary and the annual Gala Ball, and had been honored as a recipient of the Alumni Award, the Estabrook Award and as a member of the William and Kate Hofstra Honor Roll, a roster of individuals who have made major contributions to the University.

Beyond his generosity to Hofstra, Deane and his wife Barbara were active volunteers and generous benefactors to many causes and organizations. The family has been involved with Mount Sinai Medical Center, where the Barbara and Maurice Deane Prostate Health & Research Center is named in their honor. In addition, Deane had been a trustee of the North Shore University Hospital and has donated time and resources to numerous organizations including Hebrew Union College and Temple Beth El in Great Neck, on whose boards he served.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Member of the Vision 2020 Campaign Leadership Board.
• Helped to establish the P.E.A.C.E. Program, and serves as one of its Directors.
• Adjunct faculty member, teaching Family Law, Trial/Appellate Advocacy and Ethics.

Career Highlights

Samuel J. Ferrara is an Executive Partner and Co-Director of the Matrimonial Law department at Abrams Fensterman, LLP.

Ferrara counsels clients throughout all phases of divorce and separation, including custody/parental access and support/property distribution issues. He also assists clients in resolving corporate and commercial issues of all sizes, including transactional work for multimillion dollar entities, employment, shareholder and partnership agreements, licensure, and real estate and general business/corporate consultation. He is also well-versed in ADR, serving as counsel as well as mediator/arbitrator in multiple disciplines.

A top litigator and negotiator, Ferrara attained Fellowship in the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, was named one of the Ten Leaders in Family Law, and was designated as a New York Super Lawyer since 2008. He is selected by his peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America® in Family Law since 2015. Ferrara presents numerous programs and teaches at various professional organizations and institutions on all aspects of family law, trial/appellate advocacy and ethics.

Ferrara received his BA and MA from Boston University. He is a past member of the Board of Directors and past Chair of the Matrimonial Law and Judiciary committees of the Nassau County Bar Association, a member of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC), the American Bar Association, the New York State Bar Association, and the Suffolk County Bar Association.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Established the Kraig G. Fox ’93 Annual Scholarship in Entertainment Law (2016).
• Frequently speaks with students interested in entertainment law, including Breakfast with the Dean (2014), as keynote speaker for Hot Topics in Entertainment Law (2016) and SELS students and prospective students (2021).

Career Highlights

Kraig G. Fox is a veteran media and entertainment executive and the former President and CEO of Hightimes Holding Corp. He has been a founding member of some of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies and properties.

Fox began his career working with Robert FX Sillerman in the consolidation of the United States radio industry in the early 1990’s. After those stations were sold to form the foundation for what today is iHeart Media, Fox was part of the founding team of SFX Entertainment (now Live Nation) where he was Chief Development Officer from 1995 until 2000 overseeing the global consolidation of the live entertainment industry into the world’s largest owner and operator of live entertainment promoters and producers.

Following the sale of Live Nation to Clear Channel Communications, Fox was a founder and Chief Operating Officer of Core Media and its wholly owned subsidiary, 19 Entertainment, where he oversaw Core Media’s interests in the estate of Elvis Presley and the intellectual property rights of Muhammad Ali, in addition to overseeing American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance. Fox was a Senior Managing Director of Eldridge Industries (a successor entity to the media assets controlled by Guggenheim Partners) where he focused on Eldridge’s overall strategy in the media and entertainment spaces, as well as the management of its media and entertainment investments, which included Dick Clark productions, Billboard Magazine, and the Hollywood Reporter.

Fox studied television, radio, and film management at the SI Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University where he was named part of the 50 Forward, acknowledging the accomplishments of 50 Newhouse Alumni in celebration of the school’s 50th anniversary.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Recipient of the Hofstra Law Outstanding Women in Law Award (2017).
• Highly recognized as one of Long Island’s top women managing partners.

Career Highlights

Patricia Galteri serves as Managing Attorney of Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein, P.C. and chairs the firm’s Management Committee.

In addition to her management role, Galteri is Chair of the Firm’s Wills, Trusts & Estates Department. Her practice includes the development of estate and family business plans to ensure the tax efficient transfer of wealth to the next generation while meeting the specific personal goals of her clients. Her in-depth knowledge of the preparation of federal and state estate tax returns enables her to defend positions on gift and estate tax returns under audit. Galteri has appeared in Surrogate’s Court to participate in contested probate and accounting proceedings.

In 2021, Galteri was selected as one of New York’s Top Rated Family Lawyers featured in New York Magazine and New York Law Journal. In 2019, Galteri was recognized as one of the Long Island Herald’s Top Lawyers of Long Island.

In addition to receiving her JD from Hofstra Law, Galteri received her BBA from Hofstra University.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Member of the Hofstra Law faculty since 1978.
• Three-time Hofstra Law Teacher of the Year Award recipient (2003-2004, 2004-2005, and 2008-2009).
• Brought American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC) Journal to Hofstra Law and serves as Academic Editor.

Career Highlights

Mitchell M. Gans is the Rivkin Radler Distinguished Professor in Taxation at Hofstra Law.

Upon graduating from Hofstra University Law School in 1974, Gans clerked for the Hon. Jacob D. Fuchsberg, Associate Judge of the New York Court of Appeals. He then served as an associate at Simpson, Thacher and Bartlett in the trusts/estates and tax departments before joining the Hofstra Law faculty in 1978.

Gans is an Academic Fellow at the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, where he serves as the Academic Editor of the ACTEC Journal, supervising Hofstra Law students who edit journal articles written by some of the most prestigious academics and practitioners in the field.

For the past 15 years, he has had an affiliation with NYU Law School, teaching courses in an NYU/IRS program to IRS attorneys in the National Office and other personnel throughout the agency, as well as classes in the NYU LLM program. He has served as the academic chair of a commission advising the New York State legislature on the adoption of the Uniform Trust Code. Along with a co-author, he writes a book on ethics in tax practice. He has also written numerous articles.

Serving on a New York State Bar Association Task Force advising the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, Gans was instrumental in developing a recommendation that led to the enactment of path-breaking legislation. Based in part on that work, ACTEC asked him to draft a critical portion of a Supreme Court amicus brief in a case decided by the Court in June 2019.

Last year, Gans was honored by the New York City Bar Association and invited to deliver the annual Hess Lecture, where he explored the constitutional vulnerabilities of various progressive tax-reform measures under active consideration.

Gans received his BBA from Hofstra University in 1971.

Hofstra Law Impact

• First Hofstra Law alumnus elected to United States Congress.
• Honored by the Public Justice Foundation (PJF) at its annual auction, along with his fellow Hofstra Law alumni New York State Legislators, in 2014.

Career Highlights

Andrew Garbarino is a United States Congressman representing New York’s Second Congressional District and fights every day for the hardworking people of Long Island. A lifelong Long Islander, Representative Garbarino has dedicated his life to family and community.

The proud son of a lawyer and small business owner, Representative Garbarino went to Sayville High School, where he participated in student government and worked at the local hardware store. After high school graduation, he went on to receive his BA in history and classical humanities from The George Washington University. Representative Garbarino then returned to Long Island where he received his Juris Doctor from Hofstra Law.

Upon his graduation from law school, he joined his father at their family law firm in downtown Sayville.

Representative Garbarino’s love and appreciation for his family-oriented community in Long Island inspired him to run for a seat in the New York Assembly, where he served the 7th district for four terms. During his tenure in the Assembly, Representative Garbarino fought to increase state funding for Long Island school districts, protect our island’s environment including the Great South Bay, oppose tax hikes, and support our local heroes in law enforcement.

A proud member of the Sayville Rotary Club and Knights of Columbus, Representative Garbarino has been a leader in his Long Island community following the Rotary Club’s motto, “Service Above Self.”

Hofstra Law Impact

• Created the Hofstra Law in D.C. (HLDC) Externship Program (2012).
• Served as HLDC’s first Director (2012-2020).
• Taught the HLDC companion seminar in law and policymaking (2012-2020).

Career Highlights

Scott J. Glick is the General Counsel of Summit Exercises and Training, a veteran-owned small business that specializes in providing proven preparedness solutions to systematically address all threats, hazards, and incidents for its government and private sector clients.

Glick has nearly four decades of experience in law enforcement, counterterrorism, national security, and emergency preparedness. Before retiring from the Justice Department in 2017, Glick served as its director of preparedness and response, where he led the Department of Justice’s national preparedness efforts and represented the DOJ at high-level interagency policy meetings chaired by the President’s National Security Council staff.

In addition to helping pioneer the prosecution of international terrorists in the Article III courts during the 1990’s, after 9/11, Glick served as DOJ’s deputy counsel in the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review, where he advised the Attorney General on complex issues arising in national security investigations and supervised all the litigation in the country that concerned the use of classified information in criminal cases. During the 111th Congress, the DOJ detailed Glick to the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he served as Counsel to the Chairman of the Terrorism and Homeland Security Subcommittee. Prior to joining the DOJ, Glick was an Assistant District Attorney in Nassau County and prosecuted organized crime cases.

Glick has authored numerous law review articles that have been published by Harvard, Georgetown, Indiana, Catholic University and Hofstra Law, including articles that proposed new fourth amendment theories to protect the nation from cyber-attacks and WMD threats.

Hofstra Law Impact

• First woman to hold the position of Nassau County Attorney (2002-2010).
• Recipient of the Law School’s Distinguished Alumni Award (1996), and Public Justice Foundation Honoree (2009).
• Member of the Dean’s Advisory Board (2011-2018).

Lorna B. Goodman was appointed by Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi in 2002 to be Nassau County’s first woman County Attorney. In this role she reorganized and rebuilt a law department of 110 lawyers, saving the County millions of dollars in private counsel fees.

After graduation from Hofstra Law, Goodman worked for a year in the private sector and then began her career as a government attorney with the New York City Law Department. As an Assistant Corporation Counsel, she defended the New York City Landmarks Commission, the Board of Education, the New York City Police and Fire Departments and various other City Agencies. In 1980, she initiated a new litigation division to represent the city as plaintiff. In this capacity she led challenges on behalf of the City to gun manufacturers, tobacco companies, the US Census, and men-only clubs in the stream of commerce.

In 2010, Goodman served as Executive Director of the New York City Charter Revision Commission where she oversaw a referendum resulting in a return to a two-term limit for the Mayor and the City Council. She now works as a sole practitioner and mediator in New York City with a small boutique practice focusing on mediation and public interest litigation.

Goodman currently chairs the Board of Trustees of the World Monuments Fund. She also serves as a trustee of the Museum of the City of New York, Citizen Union and is on the Advisory Board of the Hospital for Special Surgery as well as the Vassar College Board of Trustees.

Goodman graduated from Vassar College in 1963.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Member of the Vision 2020 Campaign Leadership Board, Dean's Advisory Board (2013-2018), and Business Law Honors Committee (2015), and adjunct faculty member for more than 10 years, teaching Secured Transactions.
• Commencement speaker and recipient of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa (2016).
• Established the Marc Hamroff '83 Annual Scholarship. With his firm, established the Moritt Hock & Hamroff Business Law Honors Fellowship, and supported the Freedman Social Justice Fellows.

Career Highlights

Marc L. Hamroff serves as the Managing Partner of Moritt Hock & Hamroff LLP with offices on Long Island and in New York City and Florida. The firm, founded 41 years ago as Moritt & Resnick PC, has been Marc's home since his graduation from Hofstra Law 38 years ago. He chairs the firm's Financial Services Practice which includes the Bankruptcy, Equipment Leasing, Secured Lending and Creditors' Rights Groups. Hamroff has spearheaded the representation of secured lenders, banks, private equity and distressed debt funds and equipment finance companies in addressing complex issues in a wide range of transactions nationwide.

Hamroff frequently speaks and publishes for finance trade groups, professional and business organizations. He is often quoted in prominent publications such as Crain's New York, The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch and Newsday. Hamroff also publishes the firm’s Finance & Law Newsletter and contributes to the firm's Secured Lending & Finance Blog. He is a past board member of the American Heart Association serving on both its local and regional boards.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Started the first legal services office in New York for people with disabilities.
• Instrumental in helping to pass the Americans for Disability Act.
• Received an honorary doctorate from Hofstra University (1997), and received the Law School’s Distinguished Alumni Award (1993).

Career Highlights

Paul G. Hearne was the President of the Dole Foundation for the Employment of People with Disabilities and a founder and president of the American Association of People with Disabilities, which was modeled after the American Association of Retired Persons.

In 1977, Hearne, who was disabled from birth, began the first legal services office in New York for people with disabilities. He became a consultant to universities, corporations (including AT&T, IBM, and Xerox), and state and national government agencies on disability employment issues. He was one of the authors of the first national legal handbook on disability rights and on a book on employment rights.

From 1979 to 1989, Mr. Hearne directed the country's first private job placement agency for the disabled, Just One Break Inc., which had been founded in 1947 by Eleanor Roosevelt. He then became the director of the National Council on Disability in Washington and was instrumental in aiding Congress in drafting the Americans with Disabilities Act, a major equal protection initiative that became law in 1990.

Sen. Robert J. Dole asked Hearne to head his foundation in 1989, and Hearne became the first individual with a disability to direct a foundation for the disabled. Under his leadership, it raised more than $15 million for grants to local employment programs.

Hearne was a director of the International Center for the Disabled, the National Results Council, the Very Special Arts International Fund, and the Osteogenesis Imperfecta Foundation. He served on White House committees on disability issues and was vice president of the Milbank Foundation on Rehabilitation. He received national honors, including the Mary Switzer Memorial and Howard A. Rusk awards for contributions to vocational rehabilitation.

Hearne graduated from Hofstra University, where he was student government president. He was later awarded an honorary doctorate from the University.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Established the Joey Jackson ’95 Annual Scholarship (2021).
• Orientation keynote speaker (2016), and addressed the Class of 2020 at virtual celebration (2020).
• Supports the law school through donations of experiences and exclusive backstage CNN tours to raise funds for the Public Justice Foundation and sponsors students to attend the Black Law Student Association Alumni Brunch.

Career Highlights

Joey Jackson is the Principal and Founder of JOEY JACKSON LAW, PLLC, and serves as a Legal Analyst for CNN/HLN. He has frequently appeared on various cable news programs over the last decade.

Jackson is a nationally recognized attorney who has, for over two decades, represented individuals and labor unions in state and federal court. He has represented a diverse group of clients who have fallen into high-stakes personal and professional crises, as well as those who are average citizens in need of his fierce and benevolent counsel.

After graduating from Hofstra Law, Jackson was appointed Assistant District Attorney under Robert Morgenthau. Following a successful career as a prosecutor where he received the Distinguished Public Service Award, Jackson joined the firm of Koehler & Isaacs LLP where he served as Senior Trial Counsel specializing in criminal defense.

Prior to Law School, Jackson earned his M.P.A. from SUNY Albany's Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy. While earning his master's degree, he worked for the N.Y.S. Assembly Speaker as a Legislative Analyst. He also holds a B.A. from SUNY Brockport, where he participated in the honors program, directed the student-run Legal Information Service, served as student body president, and interned with the N.Y.S. Education Department as well as Congressman Charles B. Rangel (D-NY) in Washington, D.C. He also worked for the N.Y.C. Mayor's Office in the Division of Special Projects.

Jackson is a former professor at Monroe College where he taught Business and Civil Rights Law. His firm recruits from Hofstra Law for associate and internship opportunities.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Member of the Dean’s Advisory Board (2012-2018).
• Adjunct faculty member, teaching Insurance Law (2007-2017), and creator of the Insurance Litigation and Corporate Practice Externship Program.
• Hofstra Law legacy family — Sam Jaffe ’13, his son, is also an alum, as well as daughter-in-law, Ashley Sauerhof Jaffe ’14, and son-in-law, Adam Wasser ’17.

Career Highlights

Michael D. Jaffe became general counsel at Country-Wide Insurance Company in 1988, and today he serves as its Chief Executive Officer and Chair of its Board of Directors. He is also the founding partner of Jaffe & Velazquez, LLP.

He is a veteran litigator with deep experience handling a wide variety of insurance related matters. From the time that he founded the firm over 30 years ago, the firm has expanded to host a robust suite of legal services including trusts and estates, real estate, and all aspects of corporate litigation and transactional law.

Jaffe also created the Insurance Litigation and Corporate Practice Externship Program at Hofstra Law. This specialized externship is designed to provide students with a substantive educational experience in insurance law, while at the same time providing practical experience in the context of insurance defense litigation as well as in house at an insurance company.

Jaffe is a past honoree of the Chinese American Insurance Association for his contributions to the Insurance industry, and he was also honored by the Beth Jacob Beth Miriam Schools for his support for educational endeavors. He has authored many articles in law and business journals and has presented lectures to lead syndicate underwriters at Lloyds of London. He has served as a Court Evaluator and a Guardian Ad Litem in New York Guardianship proceedings.

Jaffe is a member of the American Jewish Committee, B’nai Brith International, the Brooklyn Bar Association, the Chinese American Insurance Association, the New York County Lawyer’s Association, the New York Insurance Federation, and the New York State Bar Association.

Jaffe received his undergraduate degree with Phi Beta Kappa honors from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1977.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Established the Sidney Kalikow Endowed Scholarship in memory of his father (2007).
• Established the Sidney and Pearl Kalikow Endowed Scholarship in memory of his parents (2001).
• Hofstra Law legacy family — Gregory Kalikow ’10, his son, is also an alum.

Career Highlights

Edward Kalikow is President and Chief Executive Officer of The Kalikow Group, a multi-dimensional real estate firm with its headquarters located in Westbury, Long Island, New York. As President and CEO, Kalikow oversees and manages the family real estate holdings which are comprised of approximately 2,000 rental and unsold cooperative units in the metro New York area. In addition, his management company, Kaled Management Corp., manages an additional 4,500 units of rental, cooperative, condominium and homeowners association housing also located in the metro New York area. The Investment division of the Kalikow Group has invested over $150 million of equity into the development of multifamily rentals, shopping centers, and land development projects in various markets across the country valued in excess of $1 billion.

Kalikow is an active member of the Community Housing Improvement Program (CHIP), the International Council of Shopping Centers, American Friends of Shalva, UJA Federation of NY, and the Long Island Board of Realtors.

He is a frequent speaker at the Young Jewish Professionals events and guest on the Michael Stoler show. He also serves as a Board Member on the Village of Old Westbury Planning Board and the Michael J. Fox Foundation.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Member of the Dean’s Advisory Board (2010-2018).
• Chair of the Hofstra Law Review Advisory Board (2019-present) and long-time host of the Law Review Mock Interview Program.
• Adjunct faculty member, teaching Mergers & Acquisitions (1999-present).

Career Highlights

Spencer Klein is a partner in the Corporate Department at Morrison & Foerster LLP and serves as co-chair of the firm's global Mergers & Acquisitions Group and head of the Corporate Department in New York. Klein focuses his practice on M&A transactions and related matters such as proxy contests and takeover defense counseling. He is also a veteran of numerous contested matters and regularly counsels corporate boards and committees in transactional and high-profile corporate governance matters.

Klein frequently advises leading U.S. and multinational companies across multiple industries. His engagements include multi-billion dollar deals in health care and life sciences, financial services, technology, consumer products, manufacturing, retail, energy, and entertainment and media. In addition to prominent corporate clients, he has represented some of the world's leading investment banks.

Prior to joining Morrison & Foerster, Klein was a partner at O’Melveny & Myers LLP, McDermott Will & Emery LLP, and Shearman & Sterling LLP.

Klein has been recognized regularly as one of the world's leading M&A lawyers by International Financial Law Review, Super Lawyers, Legal 500 United States, and The World's Leading Lawyers for Mergers and Acquisitions: U.S. Expert Guide (Legal Media Group). He has been named a New York Super Lawyer by Law & Politics in each of the last fourteen editions (2006-2019). Legal 500 US has referred to him as "one of the best deal lawyers in the country."

Klein has been married for 29 years to his wife Andrea, who was a graduate student at Hofstra when they met in 1987 and who received her Ph.D. from Hofstra in 1992.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Supporter of the Law School’s Distinguished Alumni on the Bench.
• Instructor in Hofstra Law’s NITA program.

Career Highlights

Jeff S. Korek joined Gersowitz Libo & Korek, P.C. in 1992 as the Senior Trial partner. Known for his meticulous preparation and dedication to his clients, he has obtained some of the state’s highest verdicts and settlements.

In 2020, Korek was named Best Lawyers Lawyer of the Year for Plaintiffs Medical Malpractice Law - New York City. In 2016, he received the same honor for Plaintiff’s Personal Injury Litigation - New York City. In 2018, the Litigation Counsel of America inducted him into the Trial Lawyers Honorary Society.

Korek routinely participates in panel discussions on the subject of medical malpractice at the New York State Judicial Institute, which provides education and training for more than 1,500 judges and justices of the New York State Unified Court System.

Korek is a Past President and current Board Member of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association and a Past President of the New York City Chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates. He is a frequent lecturer at the New York State Trial Lawyers Institute, the New York State Bar Association and Fordham University School of Law on subjects of Trial Practice, Medical Malpractice and Construction Injuries. He is regularly published in the New York Law Journal and is described as “powerful” and “influential” by publications such as the New York Times and Crain’s New York Business.

Since 1999, Korek has been appointed by five consecutive presiding Justices of the NY State Appellate Division, Second Department, to its Committees on Character and Fitness.

In 2013, he was admitted to the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Korek is a founder and active member of The Gardiner Foundation, a non-profit in the South Bronx that assists those in need by providing financial and emotional support to the community.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Member of the Hofstra University Board of Trustees (2017-present).
• Honoree at the Hofstra Law 40th Anniversary Gala, and recipient of the Law School’s Distinguished Alumni Award (2001).
• Member of the Dean’s Advisory Board (2009-2016).

Career Highlights

Randy L. Levine has been the President of the New York Yankees baseball club since 2000. During his tenure, the team has won World Series championships in 2000 and 2009. He is also Of Counsel with the national labor and employment law firm Jackson Lewis P.C.

Levine served as principal associate deputy attorney general and principal deputy associate attorney general at the U.S. Department of Justice during the Reagan administration. He resigned in 1988.

After five years in private practice, he served as New York City's Labor Commissioner from 1994-1995. He was the chief labor negotiator for Major League Baseball and negotiated the 1996 MLB labor agreement. He became New York City's Deputy Mayor for Economic Development, Planning and Administration from 1997 to 2000.

In 2007, Levine was named to BusinessWeek's list of the 100 most influential people in sports. In 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2016 Levine won Emmy Awards as Executive Producer for YES Network's Forbes SportsMoney show.

Levine earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from George Washington University in 1977 and sits on the Board of Trustees at George Washington University.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Helped launch the Vision 2020 Campaign, served on the Case Statement Task Force and on various committees organized by the Dean, and served as an adjunct lecturer.
• Established the Rosemary and Steven L. Levitt Endowed Scholarship.
• Hofstra Law legacy family — Rosemary Levitt ’82, his wife, and Jillian Levitt ’16, his daughter, are also alums.

Career Highlights

Steven L. Levitt is the Principal and Founding Partner of the boutique Mineola-based business law firm Levitt LLP. He focuses his practice on resolving business disputes, and corporate law.

In his civil litigation work, he has tried and/or resolved close to $1.5 billion worth of complex, (and often highly technical) business, contract, business divorce, and trade secret disputes in courts and arbitration tribunals across the country, and internationally. In addition, he has successfully argued numerous cases at the appellate level, including before the New York Court of Appeals, and various Federal Circuit Courts of Appeals. 

Never shying away from an ‘unfair’ fight, his clients are frequently the proverbial ‘underdog’, while his adversaries are frequently titans of their industries, and wealthy foreign governments, invariably represented by Am Law 100 law firms, or their international equivalents. His party opponents have included the Sultan of Brunei, the Sultan of Oman, Lockheed Martin Corp., British defense contractor Serco, Inc., The Men’s Wearhouse, Inc., global freight forwarder Kalitta Air LLC, and Westchester real estate mogul John Fareri.

In his corporate work, he has assisted companies spanning from the Fortune 150 to regional and family-owned businesses on a wide range of multi-million dollar transactions and real estate work, corporate governance issues, and regulatory matters across several sectors, including defense, energy, and realty.

He has represented many prominent businesses, including household names, across Long Island, New York City, and beyond, including L3 Technologies, Inc., Loral Corporation, Mercury Systems, Inc., East Coast Petroleum, Inc., GFI Capital Resources Group, Inc., Snapple Beverage Corp., and Hartz Mountain Industries, Inc., as well as numerous well-known law firms, accounting firms, and medical practices. 

Outside of the practice of law, and in addition to time he devotes to Hofstra Law, he has served on the traffic and safety committee for the Village of East Hills, and presently serves on the Zoning Board of Appeals for the Incorporated Village of Muttontown.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Honorary Co-Chair of the Vision 2020 Campaign Leadership Board.
• Recipient of an Honorary Doctor of Laws and commencement speaker (1998), the Law School’s Distinguished Alumni Award (1995), and the Hofstra Law Outstanding Women in Law Award (2016).
• Member of the Dean’s Advisory Board (2009-2018).

Career Highlights

Judith Livingston has been a partner at the law firm of Kramer, Dillof, Livingston & Moore since 1989, focusing on medical malpractice and personal injury cases. She has been called “A Legal Legend” by Law Dragon and named one of “The 50 most influential women lawyers in America” by New York magazine. She has won 35 trials with verdicts in excess of $1 million and has negotiated hundreds of settlements that have resulted in payments to her clients of almost a half-billion dollars.

Livingston is the current Vice President of the Inner Circle of Advocates, an invitation-only group limited to 100 of the best plaintiff lawyers in the United States. She was the first female, and youngest member invited to be a part of this prestigious organization.

In 2014, Livingston received the Presidential Medal from Hofstra University and the Fordham Founder’s Award. She has the distinction of being named in Best Lawyers magazine for 2011 and 2013 as the New York Medical Malpractice “Lawyer of the Year.” She was cited by the National Law Journal as one of “40 lawyers who have made their mark in the area of health care law,” and she has been listed yearly by New York magazine and Super Lawyers magazine as one of the best lawyers in New York.

She is a fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, sits on the Board of Directors of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association, and is a member of the American College of Trial Lawyers; the International Society of Barristers; the Bar Association of the City of New York; the American Association of Justice, and the International Academy of Trial Lawyers.

From 2006 through 2009, Livingston was co-president of the Judges and Lawyers Breast Cancer Alert (JALBCA) and continues to sit on the Board of Directors.

Livingston graduated from The State University of New York, Stony Brook, with high honors.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Established the D. Carl Lustig III Annual Scholarship as part of the Vision 2020 Campaign.
• Established the D. Carl Lustig III Endowed Scholarship in Tort Law (2004), and helped to establish a graduation award for outstanding trial advocacy through the New York City Trial Lawyers Alliance.
• Instructor in Hofstra Law’s NITA program.

Career Highlights

D. Carl Lustig, III is a member of the Manhattan law firm of Arye, Lustig & Sassower, P.C., handling trials of major personal injury cases concentrating in construction accident litigation. He is past president of the New York City Trial Lawyers Alliance and past chairman of its Board of Governors. He serves on the Board of Directors of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association.

Lustig has been published in numerous legal publications and authored the chapter on Plaintiff’s Opening Statements in the New York State Bar Association’s textbook, Medical Malpractice In New York (4th Ed.) He has lectured extensively for the New York State Trial Lawyers Institute, the New York State Bar Association, Yale University, the NITA Trial Advocacy program at Hofstra Law and at St. John's School of Law, and has been an invited speaker at the New York State Judicial Conference and the New York City Bar Association seminar on Trials of Civil Cases.

Elected to the American Board of Trial Advocates, Lustig is also a member of The American Association for Justice, The Million Dollar Advocates Forum and is a fellow in the Roscoe Pound Institute. He also serves on the Tort and Medical Malpractice Advisory Committees for the Supreme Court, New York County.

Lustig was honored as Lawyer of the Year by the Institute of Jewish Humanities. He has been named as one of the Top 100 Trial Lawyers in New York State by the National Trial Lawyers Association and recognized by the National Association of Distinguished Counsel. He is a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award as one of America's Top attorneys.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Helped to establish the Gitenstein Institute for Health Law and Policy.
• Serves as Board Chair of the Gitenstein Institute for Health Law and Policy.
• Keynote speaker for the Hofstra Labor and Employment Law Journal (2010).

Career Highlights

Leslie Margolin is President and CEO of The Margolin Group. Throughout her career, she has worked to improve the quality, safety, accessibility, and affordability of health care. Relentlessly focused on finding sustainable ways to serve vulnerable populations, she pioneered the forging of partnerships to address fragmentation impeding US healthcare.

As President of Blue Cross, Margolin engaged California hospital leaders to launch a groundbreaking patient safety collaborative saving ~3,600 lives and ~$63M. At Kaiser, she twice led nationwide bargaining efforts involving 29 local and 9 international unions. The U.S. DOL and academicians nationwide lauded her partnership successes.

Margolin began her career with CIGNA, where she leveraged her experience as assistant general counsel to pivot to executive leadership serving as President of CIGNA HealthCare California, COO of Kaiser Permanente and President of Anthem Blue Cross before opening her own firm.

With The Margolin Group, she capitalized on strong payer-provider-consumer relationships nationwide to build comprehensive, system-wide partnerships driving meaningful, sustainable improvements in cost, quality, and safety, particularly related to maternal-fetal health, digital-telehealth, mental health, and addiction treatment.

Margolin earned her: BA from Connecticut College and her LL.M from NYU. She has chaired the Boards of Connecticut College’s Alumni Association, AIDS Project LA, and March of Dimes, and served as Secretary-Treasurer for the California Association of Health Plans and on the Boards of ActualMeds, Trumpet Behavioral Health, Hologenix, MeU Care, IDGB-Workers Benefit Funds, Union Village, Hoag Hospital, Presbyterian Health Plan, LA Urban League and Connecticut College.

Invited to address the California Governor’s Conference in a segment titled “Wildly Successful Women Leaders,” Margolin was named “Woman of the Year” by the American Diabetes Association and by Southern California Women in Health. Her leadership was profiled in Dennis Perkins’ Leading at the Edge.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Established the Mendel Family Endowed Scholarship (2012) and the Emily and Stephen Mendel Distinguished Professorship (2018) with his wife, Emily Schulman Mendel ’77.
• Supports access to justice initiatives, including the establishment of Hofstra Law’s Pro Se Legal Assistance Program at the Eastern District of New York’s Central Islip federal courthouse (2019).
• Hofstra Law legacy family — Emily Schulman Mendel ’77, his wife, and Sarah Schulman ’94, his daughter, are also alums.

Career Highlights

Stephen Mendel is a venture partner with Alsop-Louie Partners.

After college, Mendel opened a bicycle shop, which put him through law school, along with scholarships, jobs, and loans. During law school, he worked at the ACLU and clerked at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York Civil Rights Division.

After law school, Mendel moved to California with Emily Schulman’77 and began his legal career with the San Francisco law firm, Feldman, Waldman and Kline, where he represented technology-based startups in corporate, securities, and intellectual property matters. He later joined Molecular Design as its General Counsel and then became its Executive Vice President. Seven years later, he led the company through its sale to an English conglomerate.

Mendel then founded Ithaca Software with others from Cornell University and served as its CEO. Inc. 500 recognized it as one of the fastest growing private companies of the 1990s. After Ithaca was acquired several years later, Mendel retired from operating roles and focused on advising, mentoring, and investing in young entrepreneurs.

Retirement had to be re-characterized as a sabbatical when, five years later, Mendel couldn’t resist the opportunity to serve his country by becoming the founding Managing Director of In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm that brought new national security technology to the US intelligence community. In-Q-Tel technology played a pivotal role in America’s counterterrorism efforts post 9/11. When Mendel left In-Q-Tel in 2006, he was honored by the CIA for his “visionary leadership, investment acumen and commitment to mission.” Since his return to private life, Mendel has continued to mentor, advise, and invest in young entrepreneurs, and to serve on various boards of directors.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Established the Mendel Family Endowed Scholarship (2012) and the Emily and Stephen Mendel Distinguished Professorship (2018) with her husband, Stephen Mendel ’77.
• Supports access to justice initiatives, including the establishment of Hofstra Law’s Pro Se Legal Assistance Program at the Eastern District of New York’s Central Islip federal courthouse (2019).
• Hofstra Law legacy family — Stephen Mendel, her husband, and Sarah Schulman ’94, her daughter, are also alums.

Career Highlights

After graduation from Hofstra Law, Mendel moved to San Francisco with Stephen Mendel ’77, and they were married two years later. She began her legal career at the firm of Hanson Bridgett, where she specialized in healthcare and business matters, focusing on hospital system reorganizations and acquisitions.

After several years of frustration as one of only two female lawyers then at the firm, Mendel struck out on her own and built her own law practice. For the next twenty-five years, Mendel represented significant health care systems and hospitals, specializing in healthcare commercial transactions, including extensive computer installations and major technology implementations, as well as general corporate work. Religious orders then operated many hospitals, and Mendel represented those orders in new and unusual matters, including providing sanctuary to immigrants and interacting – in Latin – with the Vatican on real estate matters.

Mendel was a frequent speaker at national health care and finance meetings and authored many articles on emerging healthcare related matters.

She retired from her law practice in 2005. She was always involved with theater and art and quickly became a widely read theater and art critic for several national and international publications.

Mendel was a single mother of two preschoolers when she entered Hofstra Law. In rare instances when childcare fell through, she brought her daughters to class. They particularly enjoyed Torts with Professor Twerski, for whom Emily became a research assistant and editor of his Conflict of Law writings. Sarah Schulman, one of those preschoolers, earned her own JD from Hofstra Law in 1994.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Member of the Vision 2020 Campaign Leadership Board and the Hofstra University Board of Trustees (1993-Present), and recipient of the Law School’s Distinguished Alumni Award (1998).
• Established the Raymond J. McKee Endowed Scholarship named for her father (2007).
• Adjunct faculty member, teaching Practical Aspects of Lawyering, Legal Ethics (2010-present).

Career Highlights

Janis Meyer advises clients on professional responsibility, risk management and professional liability issues, with a particular emphasis on attorneys and law firms. She assists clients on a variety of matters relating to law firm organization, management, policies, and structure.

Meyer was a partner and General Counsel of Dewey & LeBoeuf and its predecessor, Dewey Ballantine, and served as a member of the two-person wind-down committee that oversaw Dewey & LeBoeuf's bankruptcy filing and the subsequent wind-down of the firm. She is a prolific speaker on ethics and risk management issues at conferences throughout the country, as well as the UK.

She is a Lecturer in Law at Columbia University School of Law, where she teaches professional responsibility. She clerked for the Honorable George C. Pratt in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York and the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Former Assistant Dean (1976-1978).
• Member of the Hofstra University Board of Trustees (Chair 2008-2011).
• Established the Marilyn Monter Endowed Scholarship (2003).

Career Highlights

Marilyn B. Monter is executive vice president of the Holiday Organization, Inc., a Westbury-based real estate development and management company. After taking a break to stay at home after the birth of her first son, Stephen, in 1982, and second son, David, born in 1984, Monter joined the company in late 1984. The company was founded by her father, Gerald, in 1951.

Monter has been primarily involved in property management during her tenure at the company, beginning with overseeing the management of 1800 company-owned rental apartments until their sale in 2001. She then actively helped manage their three golf courses, sold to Club Corp. in 2011. She continues to manage two company-owned commercial office buildings on Long Island.

After graduating from Hofstra Law, Marilyn spent two years as the Assistant Dean of the Law School. She then worked as an in-house attorney for four years at what was then Allied Chemical Corporation (now Honeywell Corporation).

Monter has been active in the not-for-profit area beginning with her appointment to the Board of Friends Academy, a private school attended by each of her children from playgroup through Upper School. She has also served on the Boards of Planned Parenthood of Nassau County, the Suffolk Y Jewish Community Center, the INN, and what is now the Northwell Health System, as well as its Feinstein Institute for Medical Research.

Monter and her husband, Wilfried Witthuhn, are the proud parents of Stephen, David, Scott, Brian, and Jennifer, who added their terrific spouses, and six amazing grandchildren to the family.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Member of the Vision 2020 Campaign Leadership Board.
• Former Chair of the Dean's Advisory Board (2015-2018).
• Established the APALSA/LALSA Scholarship with John Bae ’89 (2013), and the Class of 1991 Leadership Scholarship with classmates Samuel Ramos ’91 and Larren Nashelsky ’91 in celebration of the 25th anniversary of their graduation.

Career Highlights

Fusae Nara is the managing partner of the Tokyo office at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP. Nara arrived on Long Island from Japan in 1988 to start at Hofstra Law during the height of the U.S.-Japan trade war with a desire to represent Japanese businesses in trade disputes. After graduating in 1991, she clerked for Chief Judge Dominick DiCarlo at the U.S. Court of International Trade. Then, she spent most of her career in Pillsbury's New York Office as a litigator.

Over the years her practice transitioned from international trade to various types of commercial litigation with an emphasis on antitrust matters and class actions, and she almost exclusively represents Japanese companies in cross-border disputes. 

She is one of the few Japanese-speaking litigators practicing in the U.S. and represents multinational corporations headquartered in Japan in complex commercial disputes, internal investigations, class actions, and international trade matters.

In 2021, she moved to Japan for a two-year assignment to be the managing partner of Pillsbury's Tokyo Office. She is currently enjoying the experience of living in Japan after being away for 33 years.

Hofstra Law Impact

• First alumnus to chair a major international law firm.
• Established the Class of 1991 Leadership Scholarship with classmates Samuel Ramos ’91 and Fusae Nara ’91 in celebration of the 25th anniversary of their graduation.
• Supports Hofstra Law’s Access to Justice Incubator and Public Justice Foundation through The Morrison & Foerster Foundation.

Career Highlights

Larren Nashelsky is the Chair of Morrison & Foerster LLP. Since 2012, when he began serving as Chair, he has overseen a period of phenomenal success for the firm. Today, MoFo is a global powerhouse, with market-leading litigation, corporate, and finance experience that translates into client success. Founded in San Francisco in 1883, today the firm has more than 1,000 lawyers in 16 offices on 3 continents and among the largest firms in the world by revenue.

During Nashelsky’s leadership, the firm’s global footprint has expanded, with new offices opening in Berlin, Boston, and Singapore. Through it all, the firm has remained true to its unique culture and its values. Nashelsky is dedicated to continuing and building on MoFo’s proud legacy of leadership in diversity and inclusion. Similarly, pro bono and community service are part of MoFo’s DNA. Notably, this year MoFo was ranked the number one firm for minority lawyers, highlighting that MoFo had the highest percentage of minority equity partners and the second highest percentage of minority associates.

Prior to serving as Chair of Morrison & Foerster, Nashelsky founded and grew the firm’s first ever restructuring and insolvency practice. Today, this practice is an industry leader and regularly recognized among the top practices in the country.

Nashelsky’s wife, Patty is also an alum of Hofstra Law, graduating in 1992.

Hofstra Law Impact

• New York’s 55th governor (2008-2010), the first non-white person to hold that office in New York and only the second legally blind governor in the U.S.
• Public Justice Foundation Honoree (2012). The Honorable David A. Paterson Graduation Award in Public Service was established in his honor.
• Frequent speaker at admitted student events, the Diversity Dinner and Orientation.

Career Highlights

David Paterson became the 55th governor of New York State in March 2008 after serving as lieutenant governor beginning January 1, 2007.

Prior to that time, Paterson served as a New York State Senator, having been elected in 1985 to a seat once held by his father, former New York secretary of state Basil Paterson. In 2003, he became the Senate minority leader.

Following his graduation from Hofstra Law, Paterson worked in the District Attorney's office of Queens County, New York, and on the staff of Manhattan borough president David Dinkins.

Since leaving office, Paterson has been a radio talk show host and served as chairman of the New York Democratic Party from May 2014 to November 2015. In late 2020, Paterson released his first book, Black, Blind, & in Charge: A Story of Visionary Leadership and Overcoming Adversity.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Member of the Dean's Advisory Board (2014-2018).
• Recipient of the Law School’s Distinguished Alumni Award (2006).
• Host of an annual Mock Interview program for law students.

Career Highlights

Marc Powers’ 40-year legal career includes partnership at BakerHostetler and Reed Smith and public service at the SEC. During 16 years at BakerHostetler, he built and led two successful national securities and hedge fund practices. 

Powers’ legal career involved many high-profile cases. Beginning in 2002, he represented the broker's assistant who tipped Martha Stewart during the civil and criminal insider trading proceedings. He represented the Canadian media mogul, Lord Conrad Black, in several litigations which included claims of fraud and breach of fiduciary duty. He successfully represented widows of 9-11 rescue servicemen, who were taken advantage of concerning their survivor benefits. Starting in 2008 Powers led several of his firm’s investigation and litigation teams in the $20B Bernie Madoff Ponzi Scheme scandal. He negotiated for the SIPA Trustee a historic $1B cash settlement in 2011, the largest ever received by the SIPA estate from a hedge fund. Before retiring from BakerHostetler in December 2020, he obtained a Presidential Pardon for a client whom he had represented earlier in his career.

Powers retired from BakerHostetler to focus more attention on his passions, including blockchain, advocacy, investments, golf and family. He now splits his time between New York City and Miami where he is an adjunct professor at Florida International University teaching law students Blockchain Law and FinTech Law, writes a monthly column for the crypto media platform Cointelegraph, and acts as an advisor to and investor in startup blockchain businesses and private/public companies.

Powers is a proud Wisconsin Badger.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Co-Chair of the Vision 2020 Campaign Leadership Board, member of the Hofstra University Board of Trustees (2020-present), and member of the Dean’s Advisory Board (2009-2018).
• Established the Ricardo Ramos Memorial Endowed Scholarship (2008), the Samuel Ramos Law and Technology Fund (2019), and the Samuel Ramos Endowed Public Justice Foundation Fellowship (2019).
• Established the Class of 1991 Leadership Scholarship with classmates Fusae Nara ’91 and Larren Nashelsky ’91 in celebration of the 25th anniversary of their graduation.

Career Highlights

Samuel Ramos is General Counsel and Secretary of Global Atlantic Financial Group Limited. He is responsible for Global Atlantic’s Legal, Compliance, Corporate Governance, Regulatory and Government Affairs departments.

From 1998-2013, he served as Managing Director and Associate General Counsel with numerous businesses in their securities division. He served as GC for the Goldman Sachs Reinsurance Group, which currently comprises life and annuity, property casualty and insurance markets business units with operations in the US, Bermuda, and the UK, including a Lloyds Syndicate.

After graduating from Hofstra Law, Ramos served as law clerk to Judge C. Arlen Beam of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals before joining the New York law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell in 1992, where he focused on securities law

Ramos received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University and an M.S. in Systems Engineering from New York University Tandon School of Engineering.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Instructor in Hofstra Law’s NITA program.
• Long-standing supporter, along with his firm, Weitz & Luxenberg, of the Weitz & Luxenberg Trial Courtroom and the Perry Weitz Mass Torts Institute.

Career Highlights

Michael Roberts joined Weitz & Luxenberg more than a quarter-century ago. A few years after starting with the firm, he became a member of the National Institute for Trial Advocacy – a nonprofit organization at the forefront of showing up-and-coming attorneys how to be highly effective legal advocates. NITA soon afterward began utilizing Mr. Roberts to teach law students the winning ways of trying cases.

More recently, he has taught moot-trial classes at Hofstra Law. The New York State Trial Lawyers Association, too, has drawn upon the expertise of Mr. Roberts – specifically, to instruct members in the art and science of examining expert medical witnesses on the courtroom stand.

At Weitz & Luxenberg, Roberts has been able to help many people suffering from debilitating diseases and incapacitating personal injuries. He has obtained for his clients some of the firm’s largest mesothelioma and asbestos lung cancer verdicts. He has also obtained some of the firm’s largest verdicts for people injured in construction and motor vehicle accidents and for those injured by defective products.

Apart from law practice, Mr. Roberts is actively involved with the Children’s Medical Foundation, United Jewish Appeal, Working Organization for Retarded Children and Adults, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and Hoops 4 Hope. He also volunteers as a coach of community soccer, basketball and baseball teams. Among Mr. Roberts’ personal pursuits are travel, golf and long-distance running — to date, he has participated in four New York City marathons.

Hofstra Law Impact

• First alum to serve as a United States Ambassador.

Career Highlights

Doria Rosen was nominated as the Ambassador to Micronesia in 2012 by President Barack Obama, and served in that position until 2016 when she retired. During her career, Rosen served in a variety of political and consular positions in eleven foreign assignments and three domestic assignments, including serving as the Deputy Chief of Mission in Reykjavik, Iceland, consul general in Bern, Switzerland, and deputy principal officer in Frankfurt, Germany.

Rosen attended school in New York from kindergarten until graduation from Hofstra Law. She went to Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, which was a tremendous financial challenge for her mother, a violinist, and father, a writer, even with scholarships from the college and from New York State. Rosen worked summers and part-time during the academic year throughout college and law school. This forced her to carefully budget her resources, particularly time, while she gained valuable and varied work experience.

As a law student, Rosen gained practical experience, working on a variety of issues including domestic law, landlord tenant issues, property law, and criminal law. She did an independent international law project with one of the professors, which led to her interest in serving with the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAGC). Her education and experience built a foundation and led to a fascinating career path.

Rosen was admitted to the bar in New York and California, and in 1976 she was sworn in as a U.S. Army Captain and stationed at U.S. Army Headquarters Europe, International Law Division, in Heidelberg, Germany. This experience was a bridge to a 35-year career in the U.S. Diplomatic Service.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Adjunct faculty member, teaching Advanced Trial Advocacy and Courtroom Technology and Advanced Competition Skills.
• Faculty advisor to Hofstra Law’s Trial Advocacy Association; led the team to multiple regional and national mock trial championships (2007-present).
• Created the Hofstra Law and Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell National Medical-Legal Trial Competition.

Career Highlights

Jared Rosenblatt is currently the Chief of the Homicide Bureau and Director of Forensic Science/Cold Case Prosecutions at the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office. He created and developed the District Attorney’s Office first Cold Case Unit, and currently supervises and handles the prosecution of murders and other violent crimes.

From 2004-2016, Rosenblatt worked at the Queens County District Attorney’s Office where he was a senior attorney in the Homicide Trial Bureau. In total, he’s completed over 50 trials involving crimes such as murder, rape, robbery and burglary. In 2014, he helped create the Queens District Attorney’s Mock Trial Tournament. He lectures nationwide at trial advocacy conferences.

Rosenblatt graduated from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. After law school, he worked at a large civil law firm in New York City.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Member of the Hofstra University Board of Trustees (2006-present).
• Awarded the Presidential Medal and honored at Hofstra University’s 23rd Annual Gala (2019).
• Established the Jodi and Robert D. Rosenthal Endowed Scholarship, and helped establish the Robert W. Entenmann Veterans Law Clinic.

Career Highlights

Bob Rosenthal is Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and Chief Investment Officer of First Long Island Investors, LLC, which he conceived and then founded with Ralph Palleschi in 1983. He works with the firm’s clients, providing guidance on all aspects of their “wealth of life”, including asset allocation and investment strategy development, family wealth planning, estate and tax planning. He is the head of the firm’s Investment Committee, overseeing all investment decisions.

Prior to starting FLI, Rosenthal worked for Entenmann’s Inc., becoming Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. He positioned Entenmann’s for both its initial public offering and sale to Warner Lambert. He was Co-Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer of the New York Islanders Hockey Club, L.P. from 1992 to 1997.

Rosenthal is a member of the Board of Overseers and the Board of Trustees of Northwell Health, as well as Co-Chairman of its Investment Committee and Vice Chairman of the Northwell Health Foundation. He also serves as Chairman of the Advisory Board of North Shore Hospital and as lead director of Systemax Inc.

Rosenthal graduated cum laude from Boston University. He was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1975. He breeds and races thoroughbred horses and is an avid art collector.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Adjunct faculty member for more than 25 years, teaching Trial Techniques and Advanced Trial Advocacy courses, and taught in Hofstra Law’s NITA program.
• Recipient of the Law School’s Distinguished Alumni Award (2004).
• Member of the Board of Advisors for the Monroe H. Freedman Institute for the Study of Legal Ethics.

Career Highlights

Ben Rubinowitz is the managing partner at Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf. Throughout his 30-year legal career, Rubinowitz has made his mark as a leading trial lawyer combining hard work and dedication with his remarkable courtroom skills and presence. Rubinowitz began his career as a prosecutor, where he honed the trial skills that would become his hallmark. From there, he began serving as a trial lawyer representing severely injured plaintiffs in personal injury cases, eventually joining GGCRBHS&M in 1989.

Rubinowitz's experience and legal acumen are also sought out outside of the courtroom. He has appeared as a legal expert on Court TV and co-authors a regular column in the New York Law Journal on the subject of trial advocacy. His successes as a trial lawyer and expertise in his field have earned him national recognition as a trial advocacy teacher both to attorneys and to law students. In recognition of his trial skills, Rubinowitz has been asked by the National Institute for Trial Advocacy to serve as a national and regional team leader and thereafter, ultimately elected to the prestigious position of a National Board Member of the National Institute for Trial Advocacy.

Rubinowitz was honored for his work as a plaintiff’s trial lawyer by being elected a member of the prestigious Inner Circle of Advocates — an organization limited to 100 members considered to be the best plaintiffs’ attorneys in the United States and "lawyers of excellent character and integrity." Based on his work as a trial lawyer representing plaintiffs in personal injury and medical malpractice cases, Rubinowitz was named Best Lawyers in America Lawyer of the Year four times and one of the Top 10 Super Lawyers, New York Metro Area.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Former Chair of the Dean's Advisory Board (2009-2014).
• Led the effort to establish an endowed scholarship in the name of Professor Alan Resnick, with whom he worked at Fried Frank.
• Chaired Hofstra Law’s 40th Anniversary Gala.

Career Highlights

Brad Eric Scheler is a senior partner with Fried, Frank Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP. During Scheler’s tenure with Fried Frank and through his building and leadership of a talented and diverse team of lawyers, he has been responsible for securing global recognition of Fried Frank’s premier and leading Restructuring and Insolvency Practice. In his work, he leads teams attending to investment in, recourse related to and the financial restructuring and rehabilitation of, complex and often distressed businesses either out-of-court or in connection with formal restructuring and insolvency proceedings in the United States and abroad.

Drawing upon his substantial experience in corporate boardrooms and judicial proceedings, Scheler regularly acts as outside general counsel and strategic adviser to financially strong corporate and institutional clients in connection with financings and capital market transactions, including the issuance and exchange of debt and equity securities and the structuring and implementation of mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures.

Scheler regularly represents parties seeking to invest in and/or acquire the assets and businesses of financially troubled and other companies, buyers and sellers of distressed securities and businesses, financial institutions that are lenders to and investors in financially troubled companies, and corporate debtors, creditors’ committees, bondholders’ committees, equity holders’ committees and trustees.

Scheler also represents and provides corporate finance and strategic planning advice to corporate, institutional and governmental clients. His experience on some of the largest and most complex transactions — including leveraged buyouts, strategic mergers and capital markets transactions — has given him perspective and insight into realizing maximum value from and flexibility for businesses and assets. He serves as a trustee of certain complex trusts and as an advisor to such trusts.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Member of the Vision 2020 Campaign Leadership Board.
• Secured funding for the Gitenstein Institute in Health Law and Policy.
• Endowed the Jaspan Schlesinger LLP Endowed Scholarship with his firm.

Career Highlights

Steven R. Schlesinger concentrates his practice in the areas of civil litigation involving shareholder and partnership disputes, real estate transactions and other complex commercial cases. He has been counsel to many prominent leaders in the real estate, hospitality, manufacturing, automotive, retail industries, and other business fields. His clients have included AVR Realty, Fortress Investments, Kimco Realty, Global Tissue, Winter Brothers Waste Management and Resorts of the World, N.V., among others.

Schlesinger is also a recognized expert in election and campaign finance law. He has acted as counsel on many political campaigns and has represented numerous elected officials and government agencies in election law proceedings, many of which have resulted in significant decisions.

Schlesinger has served as counsel in many federal and state court trials, including numerous cases in the Commercial Division of the New York State Supreme Court and has argued innumerable appellate cases including many in the New York State Court of Appeals. He has also litigated complex cases in Surrogate’s Courts, Bankruptcy Courts, and in the Matrimonial Division of the Supreme Court, as well as in the Delaware Chancery Court, and in the state and/or federal courts of Florida, Nevada and Texas.

He has acted as special counsel to numerous government agencies and served as a director of three publicly held corporations.

In addition to his law career, Schlesinger is also a successful businessman. He has been the managing member of a multitude of real estate companies owning shopping centers, other commercial real estate, automobile dealerships, and restaurants. Steve also serves as an adviser to a closely held hospitality group.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Served as President of the Alumni Association (2013-2017).
• Member of the Dean’s Advisory Board (2017-2018).
• Has hosted receptions for admitted and current students.

Career Highlights

Richard C. Schoenstein is a Partner at Tarter Krinsky & Drogin, and the vice chair of the firm’s Litigation Department and co-chair of its Securities and Financial Services Litigation Group.

Schoenstein has represented a wide range of clients handling trials and appeals, arbitration and mediation, and internal and external investigations. His practice focuses on four core areas: general commercial litigation, securities, financial services, and antitrust litigation, employee mobility and other employment matters, and internal and external investigations. He represents clients in state and federal courts across the country, as well as in alternative dispute resolution venues. In addition, he is a member of the firm’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee and serves as an associate mentor.

Schoenstein began his legal career and served as litigation counsel at Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP and was a partner at Paul Hastings LLP and Satterlee Stephens LLP.

He is regularly recognized by Super Lawyers and with an AV Preeminent® rating by Martindale Hubbell®. He is often retained as a mediator through the Commercial Division’s panel of neutrals in New York County or privately. He hosts the Law Brief® Podcast series, which covers current legal issues in the context of their impact on our businesses and lives. He has been published or quoted in numerous sources, including The New York Law Journal, The Wall Street Journal, and The Hollywood Reporter.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Adjunct faculty member, teaching Sports Law.
• Supporter of the Public Justice Foundation.
• Host of an annual dinner for incoming students, and regular speaker to students about sports law.

Career Highlights

Joel Segal is the managing director of team sports at WME. He is one of the most respected and revered agents in all of sports. He has over 25 years of experience representing NFL players and has negotiated record-setting contracts for high-profile players. Previously, Segal ran a private practice and then became president of football and president of team sports for Lagardère Sports, rebranded as Sportfive in 2020.

Segal graduated magna cum laude from George Washington University, where he was inducted into the George Washington University Sports Executives Hall of Fame.

Segal has been named to Forbes “World’s Most Powerful Sports Agents” list, to USA Today’s “The NFL’s 100 Most Important People” list and named one of the “Most Powerful Sports Agents” by Sports Business Journal.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Co-Chair of the Vision 2020 Campaign Leadership Board.
• Established the Philip J. Shapiro Endowed International Visiting Scholars Program (2010).
• Member of the Dean’s Advisory Board (2011-2018).

Career Highlights

Philip J. Shapiro is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Liberty Maritime Corporation (LMC), a New York based ship management company. As the President and CEO of LMC and its related companies, Mr. Shapiro heads one of the largest independent privately held US flag pure dry bulk shipping companies which carries famine relief food aid shipments around the world for the U.S. government’s Departments of Agriculture and State as well as private voluntary organizations, including the United Nation’s World Food Program, over the last 35 years.

In 2004, Shapiro founded Liberty Global Logistics (LGL), a diversification for the Liberty Group into the international roll on/roll off car and truck vehicle commercial trade. These ships are engaged in the around the world multi-modal point to point logistics and supply chain trade. LGL’s vessels also carry military cargoes for the U.S. Department of Defense as they are involved the government’s Maritime Security Program.

Prior to founding Liberty Maritime Corporation in 1988, he served for eight years as Vice President and General Counsel of Apex Marine Corporation, a US tanker owner and operator. Before joining Apex Marine, he practiced corporate, real estate and maritime law with a New York City law firm.

Shapiro currently serves as a director on a number of corporate and charitable boards including the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), the North of England Protection and Indemnity Association, the United Seamen’s Service, and the American Maritime Congress where he also serves as its Vice Chairman. He is also a Trustee of the Coast Guard Foundation, Webb Institute and the National Maritime Historical Society as well as an Associate Trustee of Northwell Health Systems, one of the largest health care providers in the nation, and a member of its Executive Associate Trustee Committee.

He received his BA in Political Science from Columbia University in 1974 and his Juris Doctor degree from Hofstra Law School in 1978. Shapiro has been recognized by numerous organizations for his contributions to U.S. flag shipping as well as his concern and care for those who sail on ships around the world. Most notably, he has been selected by his peers in the industry to represent all U.S. flag shipping companies in Washington, DC in numerous congressional hearings that address both maritime safety and legislative policy.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Recipient of the Law School’s Distinguished Alumni Award (2006).
• Orientation speaker (2007).
• Co-authors the Trial Advocacy column in the New York Law Journal with Ben Rubinowitz ’81.

Career Highlights

Evan Torgan is the founding partner in the firm Torgan Cooper + Aaron, where he concentrates his practice in plaintiff’s personal injury and medical malpractice litigation. He has procured some of the highest verdicts and settlements for his clients and has to his credit numerous multi-million-dollar verdicts and settlements.

Torgan co-authors a regular column with his friend and colleague Ben Rubinowitz, titled “Trial Advocacy,” in the New York Law Journal and was an adjunct professor at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where he taught courses in Trial Techniques and Litigation.

He has been a frequent lecturer for the New York State Bar Association, the New York State Trial Lawyers Association, the New York County Lawyers’ Association, the Queens County Bar Association, the Kings County Bar Association and The Judicial Institute. He has also been a frequent instructor at the National Institute for Trial Advocacy and lends his expertise for continuing education for New York State Judges. Mr. Torgan has written and lectured on all areas of trial practice.

Torgan is a member of the Inner Circle of Advocates, an invitation-only group of the top 100 trial lawyers in the United States, who are considered to be “lawyers of excellent quality and integrity.” He has been elected to Best Lawyers and Super Lawyers, and The Top 100 Trial Lawyers.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Honorary Co-Chair of the Vision 2020 Campaign Leadership Board.
• Established the Perry Weitz Mass Torts Institute (2004).
• Dedicated the Weitz & Luxenberg Trial Courtroom (2000).

Career Highlights

Perry Weitz's meteoric rise to the vanguard of American mass torts law can be traced to his Hofstra Law training priming him for his rise as a national bar leader.

Weitz & Luxenberg, P.C., established with Arthur Luxenberg in 1986, is among the nation's premier plaintiff's firms, achieving a staggering $19 billion in verdicts and settlements in asbestos/mesothelioma, defective medicines/medical devices, environmental and consumer fraud litigation.

Weitz is known as a trial lawyer, master litigator, world-class negotiator, courtroom strategist, and innovator — having tried some of the most significant asbestos cases in history — most famously the multi-million-dollar consolidated NY trials in the early 1990's, including the trailblazing Brooklyn Navy Yard trial, yielding a $110 million verdict, and many other significant verdicts and settlements. He has tried and negotiated some of the most significant pharmaceutical and environmental cases in the country — including the $10 billion+ Roundup settlement.

His asbestos litigation prowess resulted in 20+ Asbestos Bankruptcy Trust appointments, whereby he negotiated $30 billion+ in settlements.

He has been accorded essentially every award in his field, including "NYC Lawyer of the Year" by Best Lawyers, "Titan of the Plaintiff's Bar" by Law 360, "Elite Trial Lawyer" by National Law Journal, "Champion of Justice" by TLPJ, and the "Clarence Darrow Award" by MTMP — who'll be inducting him into the "Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame."

Weitz's passion for philanthropy, shared with his wife Felicia, has benefited such diverse and essential institutions as NY Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, Mass General Hospital, Children's Medical Fund, Legal Aid Society, Gurwin Geriatric, Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, United Soup Kitchens, and The Gust.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Member of the Hofstra University Board of Trustees (2015-present).
• Guest speaker for Distinguished Alumni Luncheon (2013).
• Hofstra University Gala honoree (2018).

Career Highlights

Steven Witkoff is Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of The Witkoff Group, which he founded in 1997. Since founding the firm, he has leveraged his extensive real estate expertise to successfully lead the financing, repositioning, and construction of over 70 properties in major business districts in the U.S. as well as abroad and with offices in New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Miami.

Before founding The Witkoff Group, he co-founded Stellar Management Company, where he acquired and repositioned a portfolio of residential buildings in New York City. Earlier in his career, he practiced real estate law at Dreyer & Traub and Rosenman & Colin, where he represented a number of large developers and investors.

Witkoff has served on the executive committee for the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) as a trustee for the Intrepid Foundation, and as a board member for the Jeffrey Modell Foundation. He currently serves as Chairman of the University of Miami Business School Real Estate Advisory Board. In October 2019, he was honored with a Presidential appointment to the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He is a widely sought-after public speaker on trends in global real estate. Witkoff also received his BA from Hofstra University, graduating in 1980.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Established the E. David Woycik, Jr. Trial Techniques Program.
• Recognized as a Hofstra University Alumnus of the Year (1998) and Hofstra University Veteran of the Year (2002), and received the Law School’s Distinguished Alumni Award (2005).
• Established the E. David Woycik, Jr. Endowed Scholarship.

Career Highlights

Colonel E. David Woycik, Jr. (Ret.), Esq., is a senior trial partner at Sanders, Sanders, Block, Woycik, Viener, Grossman PC, located in Garden City, New York, and concentrates on all litigation matters related to personal injury, construction, and highway design. He was an assistant district attorney in Suffolk County and was appointed a special U.S. attorney for New Jersey for 2003-2006.

Woycik received both his BA in 1977 and his JD in 1980 from Hofstra University. He was a member of the lacrosse team for two years after transferring from the United States Naval Academy and in addition to his undergraduate and law degrees, he earned a commission as a second lieutenant after participating in the Hofstra ROTC program.

He was president of the Hofstra Athletics Pride Club, and in 2009 Woycik was awarded the Pride Club Distinguished Service Award for his outstanding contributions to athletics and academics at Hofstra.

Woycik is a guest lecturer for the New York State Bar Association, the Nassau County Bar Association, and the American Association of Justice and Court TV. He has given back to the community by his philanthropic endeavors and volunteer work as past president of the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program of Long Island and the Vet Dogs of American and Canine Companions for Independence. 

Woycik is also a retired Colonel, U.S. Army, Judge Advocate General Corps., and served overseas in Operations Desert Storm and Enduring Freedom in the war against terrorism. He served his country for 30 years and earned the Distinguished Service Medal, Bronze Star, the Legion of Merit, and three Meritorious Service Ribbons.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Hofstra Law Distinguished Alumni on the Bench award recipient (2019).
• Adjunct faculty member, teaching New York Civil Procedure and Litigation Drafting Skills (2002-present).
• Member of the Alumni Judges of Distinction Executive Committee, and administers the Professional Oath at Orientation.

Career Highlights

The Honorable Leonard B. Austin has enjoyed a remarkable legal career, which culminated in his ascension to the Appellate Division, Second Department as an Associate Justice in March 2009. He served there, with distinction, for nearly thirteen years, handling approximately 1,000 matters yearly, involving a wide breadth of complex subject areas.

In 2000, Justice Austin was assigned to the Commercial Division in Nassau County and served there for 9 years, during which time he heard and resolved well over 2,000 cases addressing a wide variety of commercial matters, including corporate (limited liability company and partnership dissolutions; shareholder derivate claims), employment issues (including restrictive covenants) and construction contract claims. In addition, Justice Austin has heard and tried numerous medical and dental malpractice, product liability and real estate cases. While serving in the trial court, he handed down approximately 500 decisions each year of which more than nearly 100 were published annually. He also developed a streamlined method of handling construction cases that has served as a model throughout the state.

During his tenure in the Commercial Division, Justice Austin, at the behest of his colleagues, drafted the original Statewide Rules of the Commercial Division of the Supreme Court which required mediating between upstate and downstate concerns to reach a consensus. In addition, he has served on the Pattern Jury Instruction Committee which is responsible for drafting jury charges and regularly updated commentaries on the law. He was also a member of the Chief Judge’s Commercial Division Advisory Council.

Prior to serving on the bench, Justice Austin was engaged in a successful law practice for 21 years at which time he focused primarily on complex commercial litigation, matrimonial and family issues, personal injury, real estate matters, as well as appeals.

Justice Austin has authored numerous opinions that have significantly impacted New York jurisprudence and practice. Such opinions addressed issues of conflict of laws, long-arm jurisdiction, burden of proof in no-fault threshold cases, discovery sanctions, dissolution of limited liability companies, inheritance rights of second adopted children, the rights of a biological mother in surrogacy birth, tolling the statute of limitations in an accounting malpractice claim, and vicarious liability of a landlord and co-tenants in a dog bite case.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Adjunct faculty member, teaching Advanced Appellate Advocacy.
• Recipient of the Hofstra Alumni Association George M. Estabrook Distinguished Service Award (2009).
• His firm established the Quatela Chimeri PLLC Endowed Scholarship as part of the Vision 2020 Campaign.

Career Highlights

The Honorable Joseph Covello concentrates primarily in the areas of appellate and state court practice, civil and commercial litigation and alternative dispute resolution.

With over thirty-eight years of experience, divided between the private practice of law and a distinguished judicial career which culminated in his appointments by the Governor, first as an Associate Justice of the Appellate Division, Second Judicial Department, and ultimately to the Second Department’s constitutional bench, Judge Covello brings to Quatela Chimeri his extensive experience litigating and presiding over a wide array of civil disputes.

Prior to his appointment to the Appellate Division, Judge Covello served five years as a trial judge in Nassau County Supreme Court, with one year concurrently on the Appellate Term for the Ninth and Tenth Judicial Districts, and as a trial judge in Nassau County District Court.

Before taking the bench, Judge Covello spent fourteen years in the private practice of law with well-respected firms. While in private practice, Judge Covello was associate lead counsel in the celebrated case of In Re: Agent Orange, and served as counsel to both the Nassau County Police Indemnification Review Board and the Town of Oyster Bay Zoning Board of Appeals.

Judge Covello’s commitment to service commenced long before his legal career. A veteran of the United States Army, he was selected for and served in the U.S. Army Presidential Honor Guard in Arlington, Virginia.

Judge Covello has received numerous awards for his exemplary public and professional service, including the Distinguished Service Award from the Columbian Lawyers Association, The New York State Bar Association Award for Recognition, The Long Beach Lawyers Association Man of the Year Award and The Fraternal Order of Court Officers’ Honorable Edward J. Hart Jr. Memorial Award.

Recognized for his outstanding reputation, Judge Covello was appointed to and served four years on the New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics, an independent monitor that investigates and maintains integrity in state government.

Judge Covello serves as a Special Master to the Appellate Division conducting C.A.M.P. (Civil Appeals Management Program) conferences. Additionally, chosen as a select member of A.D.A.M. (Appellate Division Arbitrators and Mediators), a prestigious arbitration and mediation panel comprised of nine of the retired Appellate Division and Court of Appeal judges, Judge Covello provides a new and innovative approach to commercial arbitration and mediation services in New York.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Hofstra Law Distinguished Alumni on the Bench award recipient (2018).
• Established the Surrogate John M. Czygier, Jr. ’74 Annual Scholarship (2017), and his firm, Lewis Johs, established the Michael T. Colavecchio ’90 Memorial Endowed Scholarship as part of the Vision 2020 Campaign.
• Member and Former Inaugural Chair of the Alumni Judges of Distinction Executive Committee.

Career Highlights

After serving more than seventeen years as the Judge of the Surrogate’s Court of Suffolk County, Hon. John M. Czygier, Jr. returned to the practice of law as Senior Counsel with the law firm of Lewis Johs Avallone Aviles, LLP. After beginning his career with the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office, Judge Czygier practiced law for close to twenty-five years in the metropolitan area, handling a broad spectrum of matters, with a concentration in Estate Administration and Litigation. In 2000, he was elected to the prestigious American College of Trust and Estate Counsel. He has served as counsel to the Public Administrator of Suffolk County, as well as a Mental Hygiene Law Article 81 Court Examiner for New York and Suffolk Counties.

Judge Czygier was appointed Judge of the Surrogate’s Court by Governor Pataki in May of 2001; in November of that year, he was elected to a ten-year term and re-elected in 2011. During his tenure as Surrogate, Judge Czygier authored a number of important decisions in the area of Trusts and Estates, including opinions on the rights of distributees in an era of increased use of forensics in litigated matters.

In addition to his involvement in numerous professional associations, Judge Czygier has played an active role on various committees to improve the law and the operation of the judicial system. Since 1999 he has been a member of the Surrogate’s Court Advisory Committee to the Office of Court Administration and has been a member of the EPTL-SCPA Legislative Advisory Committee; the mission of both committees is to review existing statutes and to draft new legislation. He has served as the Chair of the Administrative Board for the Offices of Public Administrators, as Secretary/Treasurer, Vice President, and President of the Surrogate’s Association of the State of New York, and as Chair of the Hofstra Law Alumni Judges of Distinction Executive Committee.

Judge Czygier has been a contributing author to Warren Heaton on Surrogate’s Courts, and Weinstein Korn & Miller New York Civil Practice (Matthew Bender). He has trained newly elected Surrogate Judges at the New York Judicial Institute, and is a sought-after speaker in the field of Trusts and Estates at forums across the country for bar associations, financial institutions, and law schools.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Hofstra Law’s first admitted student and founding Editor-in-Chief of the Hofstra Law Review.
• Commencement speaker and recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Medal (1986).
• Recipient of the Law School’s Distinguished Alumni Award (1995).

Career Highlights

In September 1989, Judge Jack Farley was nominated by President Bush and confirmed by the Senate as a founding Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims for a 15-year term. After serving in senior status for 7 additional years, he retired in 2012. Prior to his appointment, Judge Farley was a Director, Torts Branch, Civil Division, U. S. Department of Justice and a member of the Senior Executive Service (SES). He was responsible for, inter alia, national security cases, the massive asbestos litigation, and the representation of federal employees sued personally for common law and constitutional torts.

He received his AB economics degree in 1964 from the College of the Holy Cross, where he was captain of the freshman and varsity lacrosse teams, and his MBA in 1966 from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business, where he was a Samuel Bronfman Fellow. He received his Juris Doctorate, cum laude, in 1973 from Hofstra University School of Law where he was first in his class and the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Hofstra Law Review. Judge Farley has taught administrative law and federal litigation as an adjunct professor at the Columbus School of Law of the Catholic University of America.

In the U. S. Army from 1966 until his retirement as a captain in 1970 due to 100% disability from combat wounds, Judge Farley received four Bronze Star Awards (three with "V" Device), two Purple Hearts, and the Army Commendation Medal. An avid golfer, skier, and instructor of disabled skiers, Judge Farley completed 11 marathons on a hand cycle with wounded warriors from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Hofstra Law Distinguished Alumni on the Bench award recipient (2018), and member of Hofstra Law’s Career Services Alumni Committee.
• Member of the Alumni Judges of Distinction Executive Committee.
• Hofstra Law legacy family — Hugh Campbell ’82, her husband, and Melanie Campbell ’17, her daughter, are also alums.

Career Highlights

In November 2000, Justice Grays was elected Judge of the New York City Civil Court, Queens County. In November 2002, Justice Grays was elected to the New York State Supreme Court, Queens County, where she presently sits. In 2005, Justice Grays was selected to serve in the Queens County Commercial Division where she is the Presiding Justice. In 2015, she was appointed as the Deputy Administrative Judge for Civil Matters, Eleventh Judicial District. In 2020, she was appointed as the Administrative Judge for Civil Matters, Eleventh Judicial District.

Justice Grays is the President of the Judges Division of the Judges and Lawyers Breast Cancer Alert (JALBCA); Chairperson of the Judicial Committee on Women in the Courts of the Queens Supreme Court, Civil Term; Chairperson of the Board of Trustees for the Law Library of Queens County, 11th Judicial District; and Chairperson, Board of Trustees, Queens County Women’s Bar Association (QCWBA). She has also held the positions of President of the National Association of Women Judges - New York Chapter (NAWJ-NY); President and Board of Director of the Association of Black Women Attorneys (ABWA) and President of the Queens County Women’s Bar Association (QCWBA).

Justice Grays is the recipient of the 2019 BLSA Award and the 2018 Distinguished Alumni on the Bench Award from the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University, the 2018 Judge of the Year Award from the Asian American Congress, and the 2016 Jurist of the Year Award from the Metropolitan Black Bar Association.

Justice Grays received her undergraduate degrees from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She received her Juris Doctorate from Hofstra University School of Law.

Hofstra Law Impact

• First Hofstra Law alum to serve on a nation’s Supreme Court.

Career Highlights

Justice Neal Hendel was born in the United States and attended high school at the Yeshivah of Flatbush. After graduating in 1969, he attended New York University and graduated in 1973 with a BA in sociology and Jewish studies. He later studied Talmud at Yeshiva University with Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik.

Following the completion of his JD at Hofstra Law in 1976, Justice Hendel worked at a New York law firm from 1977 to 1983. He immigrated to Israel in 1983.

From 1983 to 1988, he worked in the southern district prosecutor's office. In 1988, he became a judge on the Beersheba Magistrate's Court, a position he held until 1997. He was appointed as permanent Judge of the Beer Sheva Southern District Court in 1997, becoming its Vice President in 2006.

In 2009, he was appointed as Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel, and in August 2021, Justice Hendel was sworn in by Israeli President Isaac Herzog as the deputy president of the Supreme Court.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Member of the Vision 2020 Campaign Leadership Board, and Chair of the Hofstra Law Alumni Judges of Distinction Executive Committee.
• Named the Hofstra Law Atrium for Leeds Brown (2000), and his firm supported the Vision 2020 Campaign by naming a classroom.
• Led the effort to establish a Nassau County Living Wage Externship program with Hofstra Law’s externship office and the Nassau County Comptroller’s office.

Career Highlights

The Honorable Lenard Leeds was an Associate Village Justice, Town of Old Westbury, and the founding partner in what Newsday has called “probably the best civil rights firm in the country,” Leeds Brown Law. He had been featured in the New York Times and New York Law Journal. Leeds appeared as a legal expert on The Today Show, NBC News, Good Morning America, 20/20, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, NY1 and News 12, and had represented celebrities such as Anna Nicole Smith, Jackie Mason and Jay Black. He had written for the Long Island Press and Long Island Business News and had served as an editor of the Nassau Lawyer.

Leeds became one of the region’s first attorneys to practice workplace discrimination, sexual harassment and wrongful termination law. His firm, Leeds Brown Law, has successfully represented thousands of employees who have been discriminated against because of age, race, sex/gender and disability and counseled plaintiffs in cases involving academic freedom and first amendment protection. Leeds Brown has also handled significant cases in estate and probate, matrimonial, wage & hour and class action law, and is involved in nationwide consumer fraud and class action litigation to protect the rights of consumers and workers. At the time, Leeds was the first attorney to set aside a will in Nassau County in 10 years and has set aside wills in Queens and Westchester County as well.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Hofstra Law Distinguished Alumni on the Bench award recipient (2019).
• Past speaker at Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal events.

Career Highlights

Judge Steven I. Locke was sworn in as a United States Magistrate Judge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York on August 1, 2014. He sits in the Central Islip Courthouse. In addition to his responsibilities on the Court, Judge Locke participates in various CLE and other programs in the New York metropolitan area, including for the Federal Bar Association and the New York State Bar Association. Judge Locke also leads activities at local public schools and an FBA summer program, all of which are designed to introduce grade school and high school students to the judiciary.

While at Hofstra Law, Judge Locke served as Editor-in-Chief of Volume 10 of the Hofstra Labor Law Journal, published two notes, one with the Hofstra Labor Law Journal and the other with the Hofstra Law Review, and was a member of the Robert F. Wagner Moot Court Team.

After graduation, Judge Locke moved to Chicago, where he joined Fox & Grove, Chartered, and began his career practicing labor and employment law representing clients before the Illinois state and federal courts and administrative agencies. Judge Locke left Chicago and returned to Long Island to serve as Law Clerk to the Honorable Arthur D. Spatt in the U.S. District Court when the federal courthouse was still located on the Hofstra campus. After his clerkship, Judge Locke joined Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP in the firm’s New York office, where he continued his career practicing labor and employment law, representing clients in New York and other parts of the country before various state and federal courts and agencies. After two years with Morgan Lewis, Judge Locke opened his own practice in Manhattan, still focusing on labor and employment law, litigating cases both in the U.S. and abroad.

While in practice, Judge Locke was a member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, where he served on the Labor and Employment Law Committee, the New York Chapter of the National Employment Law Association and the EDNY mediation panel.

Prior to law school, Judge Locke received undergraduate and graduate degrees in Economics from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. While at Tufts, Judge Locke met his wife of 25 years, and they now live in Brooklyn with their two teenage daughters.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Hofstra Law Distinguished Alumni on the Bench award recipient (2018), and member of the Alumni Judges of Distinction Executive Committee.
• Delivered Hofstra Law Commencement Address and awarded a Doctor of Laws (2015).
• Founded Hofstra Law’s Latino/a American Law Students Association (LALSA).

Career Highlights

Justice Sallie Manzanet-Daniels was born and raised in New York City and is a product of New York City public schools. She is a graduate of Marymount Manhattan College, where she earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology in 1985. She is a graduate from Hofstra Law, Class of 1988, where she attended on a full scholarship.

While at Hofstra Law, she founded and served as the first president of the Latino Law Students Association in 1987-1988. As an alumna, Judge Manzanet-Daniels co-founded and served as the first chair of the LALSA Alumni Scholarship Fund, which continues to raise thousands of dollars for aspiring Latino law students.

In 1988, Justice Manzanet-Daniels began her legal career with The Legal Aid Society in the Bronx as a criminal defense practitioner. Thereafter, she served as Principal Law Clerk for three years, respectively, to both Justice Frank Torres in Bronx Supreme Court, Criminal Term, and to Justice Luis A. Gonzalez, Administrative Judge for the 12th Judicial District.

In November 1999, Justice Manzanet-Daniels was elected as Judge of the Civil Court of the City of New York, Bronx County, and in November 2001, she was elected and received a Gubernatorial Citation for becoming, at the age of 37, the youngest Justice of Hispanic heritage ever elected to the New York State Supreme Court.

In September 2009, Gov. David Paterson ’83 appointed Justice Manzanet-Daniels to the Appellate Division, First Department, thereby making her the first Latina in any Department in the history of that Court.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Hofstra Law Distinguished Alumni on the Bench award recipient (2018).
• Delivered Orientation welcome address (2021).
• Member of the Alumni Judges of Distinction Executive Committee.

Career Highlights

Judge Andrea Phoenix was elected to the Nassau County District Court in 2006 and was re-elected to a third term in 2018. Previously, Judge Phoenix was an attorney concentrating in Family Law and was an active member of the New York State Law Guardian Panel, now known as the Attorneys for Children Program. Judge Phoenix was appointed to preside over the Drug Treatment Court and the Mental Health Court. As an Acting County Judge, Judge Phoenix adjudicates both misdemeanor and felony matters. She serves on the Unified Court System Family Violence Task Force and the Nassau County Family Court Children’s Center Advisory Committee. The Judge was recently appointed to the Nassau County Committee on Equal Justice in the Courts.

Judge Phoenix received her undergraduate degree from Hampton University and her graduate degree from The Ohio State University. She earned her law degree from Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University. She was Editor-in-Chief of the Environmental Law Digest and at graduation received the Service to the Law School Award. She has remained involved in alumni activities and was recently appointed to the Law School’s Alumni Judges of Distinction Executive Committee.

Judge Phoenix is a past president of the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York, the Nassau County Women’s Bar Association and the New York Chapter of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts. Notably, the Judge was the first African-American president of all three organizations. She is the immediate past president of the Theodore Roosevelt American Inn of Court. Judge Phoenix is the corresponding secretary for the Nassau Lawyers’ Association of Long Island and sits on the WE CARE Advisory Board for the Nassau County Bar Association. She holds membership in the Nassau County Women’s Bar Foundation, the Nassau County Criminal Courts Bar Association, Amistad Long Island Black Bar Association, the Jewish Lawyers Association of Nassau County and the Long Island Hispanic Bar Association. Over the years, Judge Phoenix has been active in many community organizations and has received various awards.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Hofstra Law Distinguished Alumni on the Bench award recipient (2018).
• Adjunct faculty member, teaching Bankruptcy (2011-present).
• Member of the Alumni Judges of Distinction Executive Committee.

Career Highlights

Judge Louis Scarcella was sworn in as a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the Eastern District of New York on May 16, 2014. At the time of his appointment, he was a Shareholder in the law firm of Farrell Fritz, P.C., where he was the Bankruptcy Practice Group Leader.

During his tenure at Farrell Fritz, he had a diverse restructuring and litigation practice representing debtor entities, secured creditors, creditors’ committees, equity interests, and parties seeking to purchase the assets of, or invest in, financially troubled companies.

Before joining Farrell Fritz, Judge Scarcella was a partner in the law firm of Phillips Nizer LLP, where he served as Chair of the Bankruptcy and Creditors’ Rights Practice Group.

Judge Scarcella has practiced Bankruptcy Law exclusively during his career in private practice and has written and lectured on both business and consumer bankruptcy topics. He is a contributing author to Collier Bankruptcy Practice Guide and is an Adjunct Professor of Bankruptcy Law at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University. He is a member of the Federal Bar Council, the American Bankruptcy Institute and the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Recipient of the Outstanding Women in Law Award in Judicial Excellence (2018).
• Sat on the bench for Appellate Division, Second Judicial Department’s sitting in Hofstra Law’s Trial Courtroom and spoke with students about the experience (2017).
• Member of the Alumni Judges of Distinction Executive Committee.

Career Highlights

Justice Sandra Lynne Sgroi served as an Associate Justice in the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, Second Judicial Department, from 2009 to 2019.

She was elected to the Supreme Court for the Tenth Judicial District in 2000 and was appointed to the Appellate Division by then Governor David Paterson in October of 2009. She was re-elected to the Supreme Court in 2014 and re-designated as an Associate Justice in that year by then Governor Andrew Cuomo.

In 1996, Justice Sgroi was elected to the Suffolk County District Court for the Fourth District, Town of Smithtown, where she served for four years. During that time, she co-chaired the Women in the Courts Committee. She served as a Councilwoman for the Town of Smithtown from 1992-1996, having been elected for two terms. From 1986 to 1991, Justice Sgroi served as the Town Attorney for the Town of Smithtown and as an Assistant Town Attorney from 1984 to 1986. She served as the first woman President of the Smithtown Rotary Club in 2000.

Justice Sgroi is currently Of Counsel to the Law Firm of Elias C. Schwartz, PLLC of Great Neck, New York. She also serves as a Part 146 Surrogate’s Court Mediator, a Part 36 Court Examiner for Article 81 Guardianship Matters, a Consultant to Touro Law School and a Special Referee for Attorney Disciplinary Matters. She is a member of the New York State Bar Association, the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York, the Suffolk County Bar Association and the Suffolk County Women’s Bar Association.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Recipient of the Outstanding Women in Law Award in Judicial Excellence (2017) and Law School’s Distinguished Alumni Award (2001).
• Long-standing member of Hofstra Law’s Alumni Association Board, and currently serves as Judicial Liaison (2016-present).
• Member of the Alumni Judges of Distinction Executive Committee.

Career Highlights

Judge Denise L. Sher was appointed June 21, 2006 to the New York State Court of Claims and is currently Acting Supreme Court Justice in the Nassau County Supreme Court, presiding over civil cases.

Serving since 1995 as a Nassau County District Court Judge, she was the first female elected as President of the Board of Judges Nassau County District Court in November, 2001. Known for her legal expertise and excellent courtroom management, she was appointed Supervising Judge of that court on January 1, 2006.

A practicing attorney since 1979, she served as Hempstead Deputy Town Attorney, and was a member of the Supreme Court Appellate Division Law Agency, in private practice.

A tireless worker for community and professional organizations, Judge Sher’s actions have earned her numerous honors including The Honorable Edward J. Hart, Jr. Memorial Award from the New York State Fraternal Order of Court Officers, Women of the Year from the Court Officers Benevolent Association of Nassau County, and the Martin Luther King Jr. Living the Dream Award.

Judge Sher served as director of the Nassau/Suffolk Women’s Bar Association, lecturer for the Nassau County Bar Association, NYS Office of Court Administration, NYS Academy of Law, and other organizations and the chairperson of the Bar Association District Court Committee. As a result of her ability and professional activities, she was chosen chairperson of the Nassau County Judicial Committee on Women in the Courts, New York State Local Courts Advisory Committee, New York State Family Violence Task Force, and New York State Judicial Committee on Women in the Courts. She was vice-president of the Jewish Lawyers Association of Nassau County, and past-president of the Theodore Roosevelt Inn of Court.

For over twenty-five years, Judge Sher has been an officer and member of numerous civic and charitable organizations focused on helping the residents of Nassau County. She has served as a director of the Family and Children’s Association, Nassau Child Care Council, Friedberg JCC, and the Nassau Council Chambers of Commerce. A life member of Hadassah and Yashar she was also a member of the Five Towns Community Chest, Kiwanis, Women Economic Developers of LI, Hewlett-East Rockaway ORT, and the National Council of Jewish Women.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Hofstra Law Distinguished Alumni on the Bench award recipient (2019).
• Member of the Alumni Judges of Distinction Executive Committee.
• Speaker at Hofstra Law diversity mentoring events.

Career Highlights

Justice George Silver, a native Bronxite, attended New York University, where he earned an MS in Accounting and Management, and Hofstra Law, where he earned a JD in 1983. He also earned an MBA in Finance from NYU Stern School of Business in 1992.

At the time, he was also working full time as in-house counsel for five private bus companies. Thereafter, he joined Fields & Rosen, a firm specializing in maritime law, commercial and real estate matters, and personal injury actions, besides handling matters for the bus companies. He later became an equity partner in the firm, which was renamed Fields, Silver & Santo, L.L.P. and ultimately Silver & Santo, L.L.P.

In 2004, Justice Silver was elected to the Civil Court of the City of New York and assigned to Civil Court, Kings County, until he was reassigned in April 2009 to Family Court, Bronx County, where he presided over juvenile delinquency matters. In January 2010, Judge Silver was appointed a Supreme Court Judge by designation and assigned to Supreme Court, New York County, where he presided over the approximately 2,000 pending motor vehicle cases. From April 2011-October 2015, he presided over the Trial Assignment Part. In 2012, he was also assigned potential early settlement of Medical Malpractice Cases as part of a specialized grant program. In 2012, he was elected to the Supreme Court of the State of New York. In October 2015, Justice Silver was asked to preside over a newly created Mediation Part called J-Med besides his other assignments: the Medical Malpractice Early Settlement Part and an IAS Part handling general matters. In 2016, he was assigned a limited Matrimonial caseload.

In July 2017, Justice Silver was appointed by Chief Judge Janet DiFiore to the new position of Deputy Chief Administrative Judge for New York City Courts. He was briefly the Acting Administrative Judge for New York County Supreme and Civil Courts, and he was also the Acting Administrative Judge for Bronx County Supreme and Civil Courts in January 2018.

Justice Silver is also involved in community-based organizations and Bar Associations, including the NAACP, the International Association of Gay and Lesbian Judges, and the Jewish Lawyers Guild. He is co-chair of the Ethics and Professional Committee of the Torts, Insurance, and Compensation Law Section of the New York State Bar Association and is a new member of the NYSBA Committee on Diversity and Inclusion.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Hofstra Law Distinguished Alumni on the Bench award recipient (2019).
• Member of the Alumni Judges of Distinction Executive Committee.
• Speaker at Hofstra Law student events.

Career Highlights

Judge Norman St. George was appointed as Deputy Chief Administrative Judge for Courts Outside New York City effective September 1, 2021. The appointment was made by Chief Administrative Judge Lawrence K. Marks, with the consultation and approval of Chief Judge Janet DiFiore and the Presiding Justices of the Appellate Divisions of the Second, Third and Fourth Judicial Departments.

Judge St. George is responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of all trial-level courts in the 57 counties outside of New York City, which includes over 640 Justices and over 6000 non-judicial employees. He works with local Administrative Judges in overseeing implementation of the court system’s programs and initiatives and in optimizing allocation of personnel and other court resources to meet the needs and goals of those courts. Additionally, he is responsible for oversight of New York’s local Town and Village Courts.

Judge St. George is an elected Justice of the Supreme Court for the 10th Judicial Department. Judge St. George served as the District Administrative Judge for all courts in Nassau County from 2019 through August of 2021. In that capacity, Judge St. George oversaw the Supreme Court, County Court, Family Court, Surrogate Court, District Court, and all City and Village Courts. Judge St. George directly supervised over one hundred Judges and a non-judicial staff of one thousand individuals.

Prior to ascending to the bench, Judge St. George practiced law for sixteen years as a federal and state trial attorney, including serving as an Assistant District Attorney for the County of Nassau under District Attorney Denis Dillon and becoming a partner in the Wall Street firm of Jackson, Brown, Powell and St. George, LLP.

Judge St. George attended Adelphi University in Garden City where he majored in Accounting and graduated with honors. At Hofstra Law, Judge St. George was a member of the Hofstra Statewide Trial Team and was privileged to be selected as a student member of the Nassau County Inns of Court.

Hofstra Law Impact

• Hofstra Law Distinguished Alumni on the Bench award recipient (2018).
• Chair of the Board of Advisors for the Center for Children, Families and the Law.
• Hon. Nancy T. Sunshine ’81, his wife, is also an alum.

Career Highlights

Judge Jeffrey Sunshine, Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, is the Statewide Coordinating Judge for Matrimonial Cases and the Chair of the Chief Administrative Judge’s Matrimonial Practice Advisory and Rules Committee. He is Chair of the Board of Advisors for Hofstra Law’s Center for Children, Families and the Law, where he obtained his Juris Doctor degree in 1980. He serves on numerous Statewide Court Committees and Task Forces.

A former President of the Brooklyn Bar Association, he is also an alternate member of the House of Delegates of The New York State Bar Association where he was a member of the House of Delegates for many years. He is also a member of numerous other local and statewide Bar Associations.

He has sat in Kings County Family Court; Richmond County Supreme Court; Kings County Supreme Court.

In 2003, he received the Ecumenical Award from the Catholic Lawyers Guild, Kings County, and in 2005, the Brooklyn Bar Association’s, Annual Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Science of Jurisprudence and Public Service. In 2009, he received the In the Trenches Award from the Lawyers Committee Against Domestic Violence. He was the sole recipient of the 2010 annual award of the New York Chapter of the American Academy - Matrimonial Lawyers. In March 2018, he was recognized by Hofstra Law with a Distinguished Alumni On The Bench award. He has authored articles in the New York Law Journal. Over 130 of his decisions have been published and he has presented over 135 lectures/panels throughout New York State.

He is married to Hofstra Law alum, the Honorable Nancy T. Sunshine, Esq. ’81, County Clerk - Kings County. They met in the lounge outside the Hofstra Law Library in 1978.