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Bonnie Steingart is a member of Cardozo’s first class and
graduated magna cum laude in 1979. While at Cardozo, she was notes and
comments editor of the Cardozo Law Review and recipient of the Felix
Frankfurter Award. Now, 20 years later, she has become a member of the
Cardozo Board of Directors. She is a partner at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver
& Jacobson and specializes in regulatory, transactional, and litigation
matters. She sat down with Cardozo Life editor Susan Davis to talk about
her career, the legal profession, and what she sees for Cardozo in the
future.
Davis: This fall you became a member of the Cardozo Board of
Directors. Can you tell me what your early impressions are?
Steingart: The people on the Board, their caliber, and involvement
are very impressive. They are clearly knowledgeable about the School, its
academic and fundraising activities, and they try to make a real contribution
to Cardozo’s development in those areas and in its being recognized for
having quality programs.
Davis: How do you think Cardozo’s reputation is viewed in the
legal community?
Steingart: Cardozo has a very solid reputation. In terms of
scope, depth, and quality of professors, it should be perceived as on a
par with NYU, if not better.
One of the nice things
about being a lawyeris that there is opportunity for movement. |
Davis:
You went from Cardozo to a clerkship with Judge Jack B. Weinstein of the
US District Court, Eastern District of New York. Did you find that experience
to be a critical part of your education and your practice?
Steingart: Yes, it was. The clerkship was also helpful in increasing
the number of firms that were interested in interviewing and hiring me.
I think Judge Weinstein and other judges who took clerks from Cardozo
did so because they had such respect for Yeshiva University and for the
original founding professors of Cardozo. I was the beneficiary of that
reputation. People in the legal profession then, who knew anything, knew
that Cardozo would succeed and were eager to hire people from Cardozo.
And I think people still think that way.
Davis: Prior to returning to Fried Frank in 1999, you were deputy
superintendent and general counsel at the New York State Department of
Insurance. How would you describe that position?
Steingart: Being a general counsel is one of the most interesting
things you can do as a lawyer. In
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my position, I got to do enforcement
against companies that were not complying with solvency or consumer protection
requirements. I was able to write laws, develop policy initiatives, structure
transactions and reorganizations involving insurance companies, and visit
with legislators and deal with issues they had in terms of how the agency
is run. So I really got to do a variety of tasks and use problem-solving
skills that I have developed over the course of my career.
Now that I have returned to Fried Frank, I’m trying
to maintain that same kind of diversity. I do some corporate work as well
as litigation, and I still represent government agencies—they get sued
and undertake investigations.
Davis: Does Fried Frank hire many Cardozo grads?
Steingart: Fried Frank has at least three partners now who graduated
from Cardozo. I think that number will grow in the next year or two. In
addition, this firm always hires a number of Cardozo students who come
here and do very well.
Davis: It seems as if employment prospects for young lawyers
are growing and that firms are hiring increasing numbers of law students.
Steingart: I think that the market for lawyers is strong and
that Cardozo’s dean of professional development will help our graduates
broaden their perspective about exciting career opportunities. There are
many things to do beyond going to a large firm or clerkship. There are
many interesting corporate, not-for-profit, and compliance jobs to have.
There are many ways in which to grow your career.
The clerkship
was helpful in increasingthe number of firms that were interested in interviewing and hiring me. |
Davis: On occasion I do some recruiting for Cardozo, which helps
me develop marketing and admissions materials. This year, a majority of
the students with whom I visited said that they are interested in international
law. What does this area of law generally encompass?
Steingart: At our firm, what one does most is give advice to
companies that are global. These companies have businesses in all sorts
of jurisdictions, and they need advice on how to run them and do transactions
that are compliant with all of the securities and other laws in their jurisdictions.
You may be called on to do agreements that are global in scope. For example,
to market a pharmaceutical company worldwide or to sell media time across
borders, you have to have a sense of how those agreements are enforced
and you must be sure to have forum selection clauses, choice of law clauses,
and other items that will give your clients in an international context
the greatest amount of certainty. But there is no single body of international
law.
I think that the YU structure—with Einstein Medical
College and Wurzweiler School of Social Work—gives Cardozo a really wonderful
opportunity to develop a master’s program in health-related law. This area
of practice encompasses Medicaid and Medicare; how insurance companies,
health insurance companies, and health professionals are regulated; the
ethics of medicine, euth
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anasia, abortion, and the ethics of distributing
a finite amount of high-level medical care to an almost infinitely demanding
population.
Cardozo could be at the forefront of developing
professionals who will be leaders in the area, who will practice at hospitals
and departments of health, who will make government policy. This is really
one of the emerging important social/political issues in the United States.
I have already discussed this with some members of the Board, and I will
talk with the dean about it. International law is nice, but this, I think,
would be an important area in which Cardozo could emerge as a leader.
Davis: You touched briefly on how you have been able to structure
your job in order to enjoy it more. The dean and the faculty are beginning
to look at pro-active ways that the Law School can correct lawyer disaffection,
the attrition rate among young associates, and growing dissatisfaction
with the legal field. I wonder if you have any thoughts on this subject?
Steingart: I don’t think that there’s more disaffection with
law than there is disaffection with life. Lawyers may have inordinately
high expectations about what they deserve because they are lawyers. But
we don’t get things just because we think we deserve them. We get them
because we earn them or we are offered certain opportunities.
I think you have to figure out where you fit, and
that is always really hard. I think law, like everything else, has become
very competitive. It’s such a big world today that it is much harder to
find a place where you feel you belong and where you think you can make
a difference. And, of course, if you become a lawyer just because you want
to accumulate wealth, then you’ve planted the seeds of continuing dissatisfaction.
Davis: Why do so many young attorneys choose to work at a firm
like Fried Frank knowing that long work days are common?
Steingart: Many people work long days, and there are still times
that I do. But the relationship between young lawyers and law firms is
not just one-sided. Young lawyers get exposure to major issues and complicated
transactions. They get paid a lot of money, and they can do it for as long
as they want.
One of the nice things about being a lawyer is that there is opportunity
for movement. After coming to Fried Frank in 1980, I left after three years.
I went to a small firm for a couple of years, and I came back here and
became a partner in 1986. Then, I left for a couple of years to take the
job at the State Department of Insurance. While I’m happy to be back at
Fried Frank, there are still other professional opportunities I would consider.
Davis: Pro bono legal work is written about and discussed a lot
at law school. There are panels at Cardozo about it, and our admissions
materials discuss it. How much of your career is devoted to pro bono legal
work, and how is it important to your career?
Steingart: For those interested in doing it, pro bono work is
a very important ingredient in a professional’s life. I spend between 10
and 20 percent of my time doing pro bono work that ranges from giving organizational
speeches and papers at conferences to taking on litigations to serving
on a board, not only at Cardozo but for many years at the NAACP Legal Defense
Fund, where I did a number of litigations.
The firm does a lot of pro bono work, including
organizational and charitable activities as well as specific kinds of litigation.
For instance, we represent charter schools pro bono. It’s not litigation
work but corporate governmental representation of entities that are trying
to run schools that provide a different kind of quality of education. As
a firm we decided that it’s worthwhile contributing valuable lawyer time
that would otherwise go to paying clients. From my point of view, in this
kind of practice it’s very important because you tend to lose your sense
of the world when you spend your life representing companies like IBM and
Xerox. People
aa0
talk about big firm work as being immoral; it’s not immoral,
it’s amoral. There is no underlying issue of social justice when it is
a battle of corporate greats. If you don’t fill your life with things that
steer your moral compass, I think you begin to forget your own sense of
right and wrong.
Davis: What would you like to accomplish or contribute as a
board member?
Steingart: I would like to help involve other alumni in more
regular giving to the School. I think people believe that when they’re
asked to give they must contribute a lot, or that if they give one contribution
they are going to be asked to give all the time. I would like people to
understand that giving shows a commitment and an involvement and helps
the institution and the public’s perception of the institution, which is
important to those of us who’ve graduated. The act of giving to one’s alma
mater is a symbiotic kind of giving.
People have to realize that they can start small
and build. No one has to give more than they can afford. They can
skip a year if they are not having a good year. In general, though, alumni
should make giving to Cardozo part of their regular charitable activity.
If everyone did, it would mean that the School would develop a meaningful
endowment that could be used to make Cardozo a real factor in legal education.
I would like to organize these efforts, and those
that will help Cardozo grow on a professional level in New York. I would
like to see a Cardozo graduate on the federal bench. There are a number
of grads who are in the right positions to be appointed; it’s time; and
we have enough influence to see that it happens.
Davis: We’re delighted that you decided to spend part of your
time as a member of the Cardozo Board.
Steingart: And I’m delighted to be on the Board. It’s an exciting
time for Cardozo: I think Paul Verkuil is a great dean, and I think the
School is ready to take the next step. I’m honored to be helping.
| If you don’t fill your life
with things that steer your I think you begin to forget your own sense of right and wrong.moral compass, |