Power Lawyers 2017: Hollywood's Top 100 Attorneys

April 26, 2017 The Hollywood Reporter - No envelope mix-up here! Meet the attorneys behind the 'Moonlight' Oscar winner, Melania's litigation, Bill O'Reilly's downfall, the year's biggest media megamergers and pretty much anything that matters in Hollywood.

Iddo Arad
Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz

Alma mater Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law

Why he matters The New York-based lawyer has represented A24 since its inception and in 2016 negotiated the film studio's deal with Plan B to make best picture winner Moonlight. Arad also represents the makers of Risk, the May 2 documentary about Julian Assange that took six years to film, gained unprecedented access to the asylum-holder and had its share of legal challenges.

Last TV shows binged"The Crown and RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars 2. Simultaneously."

Read more in The Hollywood Reporter. 

The National Law Journal ranked Cardozo Law 36th in the nation for 2016 graduates who were hired for "gold standard" jobs: full-time, long-term jobs that require bar passage, and are not funded by the school.

View the rankings on Law.com.

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Dean Judy Mender

May 18, 2017 - After serving 22 years at Cardozo - the past 16 of them as Dean of Students - Judy Mender will retire on August 1, leaving behind a vibrant legacy of valued service, thoughtful counsel and deep concern for students.

In her time as head of the Office of Student Services, Judy counseled untold numbers of Cardozo students, supporting them and helping them cope with the challenges and demands of law school. In return, seven Cardozo classes awarded her with the "best administrator of the year" award or "best service to students" award at commencement. Through it all, Judy’s kind and calm manner was a constant, and students, faculty and staff are deeply appreciative for all she has given the community.

Judy’s career in higher education came after several years as a teacher and director of a music program and then as a lawyer. A New Jersey native, she brought a wealth of experience to her work at the law school. She earned her bachelors degree from Williams College, a Master’s in Education from Columbia Teachers College and a J.D. from Fordham University. Judy began her career at Cardozo in 1995 as a counselor in the Office of Career Services, a role that combined her interests in law and education. She took on the role of acting director of students in 2000, and soon after was promoted to her current position as associate dean.

Judy’s service and counsel to the Cardozo community has been extremely meaningful and we all owe her a great debt of gratitude.
 

Victor Cueva, ’15, was sworn in as an American citizen last week during a ceremony that included Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor as the guest speaker and Chief Judge Robert Katzmann, who administered the oath.

Cueva’s journey to citizenship was long and filled with obstacles. Cueva came to the United States when he was eleven years old with his family from Lima, Peru. They settled in Kingston, New York and his father worked in a bakery to support the family. In 2004, his father’s employer agreed to sponsor him to obtain lawful residency.  His father retained an attorney with an office in New Paltz, New York, because there were very few immigration attorneys in the Hudson Valley region. The attorney collected one thousand dollars in cash from his parents and asked the family to leave her alone to work on the case. Six months later, the family returned to her office only to find out that she had closed her practice and moved with no forwarding address.  They did not report the incident for fear of being deported. 

Victor was the first in his family to attend college and graduated summa cum laude from State University of New York, Albany, and Cardozo Law School. He joined Immigrant Justice Corps as a Justice Fellow in 2015 and has spent much of his time helping immigrant families in the Lower Hudson Valley.

For the past two years, Victor has worked with Catholic Charities. He has spent much of his time representing unaccompanied minor children fleeing violence from Central American countries, including El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, and filing applications for victims of crime, domestic violence and severe trafficking. Victor will spend his optional third-year fellowship working at the Worker Justice Center in Kingston.

Congratulations to Cardozo alumni Amol Sinha '10, the new Executive Director of the ACLU-NJ. It's a role he says merges his two passions: advocating for constitutional rights and New Jersey. Sinha says Cardozo laid the foundation for his career in public interest law.

Simone Lelchuk '10, JAMS and Weinstein Melnick LLC

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Lelchuk's work entails mediating various matters, as well as reviewing party submissions, researching and reviewing relevant case law, and working with parties in advance of the mediation to ensure that parties are adequately prepared the day of their mediation. She is also responsible for conducting various post mediation efforts to resolve any outstanding matters that may present barriers to settlement. Lelchuk has mediated anti-trust cases, legal malpractice matters, contract disputes, mergers and acquisition litigation, personal injury and subprime litigation, and securities class actions.

Prior to working for JAMS and Weinstein Melnick LLC, Lelchuk was an associate at KPMG LLP (in the valuation group) from 2005 to 07 and an associate at Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP from 2010-13. At Kasowitz, Lelchuk was a member of the bankruptcy group, and then she helped launch Kasowitz’s new real estate group.

As a law student at Cardozo, Lelchuk was president of the Cardozo Dispute Resolution Society, and she was also a participant in the Cardozo Mediation Clinic. She credits the Mediation Clinic with enabling her to gain invaluable experience in a field she was eventually to pursue. Through her clinical work, Lelchuk was able to participate in the mediation of actual cases in the Brooklyn Community Mediation Center and the New York City Small Claims Court. She also furthered her ADR classroom experience and enhanced her mediation and negotiations skills by joining the Intensive Mediation Advocacy Program (IMAP) and taking the Negotiation Theory and Skills course.

Her advice to current students who are motivated to pursue a career in ADR is first to focus on the field in which they are most interested by obtaining expertise in many facets of that respective arena. Lelchuk explains that students need to understand that ADR (including mediation) is a very broad field and to be successful in it one needs to develop a professional niche. Once a student identifies that specific sphere, the student should then seek opportunities to gain exposure in it. According to Lelchuk, in order to have credibility in one’s chosen field, it takes time and effort. She asserts that the best advice she can give to all students, especially those interested in pursuing a career in mediation, is to be persistent and patient.

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Reinman also served in the U.S. Marine Corps and worked as a legal assistant in Federal Immigration Court, U.S. Department of Justice. He obtained his J.D. in 2010 from California Western School of Law.

For Reinman, the Dispute Resolution and Advocacy LL.M. was an important step in obtaining his current position at the EEOC. He participated in the Cardozo Divorce Mediation Clinic, Intensive Mediation Advocacy Program (IMAP), and studied Dispute Resolution Processes. Through these courses he gained practical experience from skilled practitioners. Cardozo exposed Reinman to influential mediators in the New York community and he was able to take advantage of the connections and resources available to him through Cardozo’s Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution. His advice to students is to gain experience through internships, clinics and or any other work so that they are marketable. He also emphasized that it is important to have a work life balance, and students should begin to cultivate that balance early in their careers.
 

Mariam Zadeh ’95 at First Mediation Corporation

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Before starting her mediation practice, Zadeh spent over a decade handling a variety of litigation disputes in California, New York and New Jersey, practicing for both the plaintiff and defense side. She was an active trial lawyer in New York City and worked at the Law Offices of Peter G. Angelos and Martin Clearwater & Bell LLP. After the World Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001, she moved to Los Angeles, California and worked as a litigation attorney for Safeco Insurance, while pursuing her LLM degree in ADR from the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine University which she obtained in 2005.

Most recently, Zadeh was awarded the Los Angeles Lawyer of the Year Honoree in Alternative Dispute Resolution by Best Lawyers in 2017. She is a distinguished fellow and former board member of the International Academy of Mediators. She has been featured since 2007 as a SuperLawyer in Southern California Super Lawyers magazine and since 2010 in the Best Lawyers in America for her steadfast commitment to achieving equitable results, her personal concern for the parties and her persistence and willingness to work at all hours to attain closure.

Zadeh encourages students to “manage their own expectations,” by recognizing that the path to becoming a full time mediator is far different than that of hanging a shingle as a practicing attorney. One’s mediation practice develops over a period of time with a mindset of “slow and steady wins the race.” This requires a focus towards building relationships one at a time and networking with professionals in the field who can serve as mentors. When Zadeh first moved to Los Angeles in 2003, she made it a priority to meet with attorneys in different practice areas on a regular basis to develop and understand their perspectives, challenges and expectations when it comes to mediation. Zadeh believes that as a result of these efforts she is better able to understand the needs of her clients (the lawyers) and work collaboratively with them to advance their client’s goals. She stresses that the path to a successful mediation practice has the same requirements of a successful mediation: patience, persistence and perseverance.

When Geoffrey Bowers, a member of Cardozo’s class of ’82, was fired from his law firm in the late 1980s, he hired two fellow classmates to represent him in what would become one of the most significant court cases ever involving workplace discrimination.

Cardozo alumni Robert Balsam ‘82 and Daniel Felber ‘82 spoke about their roles in the case at Cardozo’s OUTlaw Alumni reunion September 19.

After starting a small law firm together in 1987, Robert Balsam and Daniel Felber, were contacted by Bowers, who asked them to represent him in a case against his former employer. Bowers had been fired by the law firm Baker & McKenzie. Bowers, a gay man who had been diagnosed with HIV, claimed the firm fired him once he began showing physical symptoms of the disease.

Bowers subsequently filed a complaint with the New York State Division of Human Rights alleging discrimination. It took over six years for the case to finally be resolved. Bowers lost his battle with the disease during that time, but ultimately won the case. Baker & McKenzie appealed but subsequently withdrew the appeal in 1995 after they negotiated a confidential settlement with Bowers' family.

The story ended up in the hands of the production team who created the movie Philadelphia. A lawsuit ensued after the movie was released, as Bowers’ family claimed real-life events were used for the movie’s plotlines and not credited to Geoffrey or the family.

That lawsuit was settled in 1996. 

The story made headlines in the late 1980s and brought discrimination in the workplace into the spotlight. 

"It was a real pleasure having Robert and Danny back at Cardozo sharing their story, in particular with students and younger graduates whom might not be as familiar,” said Inez Lano, director of Alumni Affairs. “Together with several members of the class of 1982, including Loretta Gastwirth, they successfully tried one of the first human rights cases in New York. This is a great example of what makes up the fabric of Cardozo Law School."

Rob Doerfler, LL.M. ’08, president of OUTlaw Alumni, said “Thank you for the courage to take the case and tell the story.”

Felber commented that his role in the case, and the case’s impact, holds tremendous meaning. “It’s how you use that 15 minutes of fame that defines you,” he said.

Cardozo School of Law celebrated 2018 Giving Day, part of Yeshiva University‘s larger donation campaign, for a 24-hour period starting Wednesday, April 25 through Thursday, April 26, 2018.

The Giving Day campaign theme campaign was “Cardozo Heroes” and the #CardozoHero Lounge was set up in the lobby with superhero costumes available for fun photo-ops.

Students, faculty and alumni were encouraged to highlight their own heroes amongst the community while supporting the school with a donation. Each donation was matched dollar for dollar by Yeshiva University and donation matches were quadrupled by Yeshiva during the final hours of the campaign.

Cardozo raised $187,652 from over 260 donors in 24 hours for giving day and won the Alumni Donor Challenge amongst all the Yeshiva University schools, with the highest total of alumni donations.

Yeshiva University raised $4.5 million overall, exceeding their goal by 50 percent. 

Thank you to all who participated!

Congratulations to Yael Y. Mandel, the 2018 recepient of the Louis D. Brandeis Award for the highest GPA.

Congratulations to all the members of the class of 2018 who were elected to the Order of the Coif.

Louis D. Brandeis Award for Highest GPA

Yael Y. Mandel 

Members of The Order of the Coif

Stephanie Alvarez-Jones

Kimberly L. Barr

Emily C. Barry

Jillian R. Bauman

Brette C. Berman

Alexander J. Brennan

John A. Corrado

Alexander L. Del Priore

Joseph J. Erdos

Erica L. Franco

Molly G. Gallagher

Regina R. Gerhardt

Patrick J. Glackin

Jessica N. Goudreault

Aaron R. Haines

Dakota L. Kann

Jessica A. Landau

Yael Y. Mandel

Edward Matzner

Lekha S. Menon

Laila Metjahic

Jarred R. Muller

Avery Nickerson

Eric D. Pilch

Lyubov Shamailova

Casey E. Thomas

Ryan Thorne

Noah S. Weingarten

Catherine M. Weiss

Adjunct Professor Michael Wildes '89 appeared on MSNBC Live with Alex Witt to discuss children as young as three years old appearing in court without a parent or representation:

“Historically, immigration has been a civil remedy, so you’re not entitled to an attorney as you would be in a criminal proceeding. They will give you a list of legal counsel you can reach out to if you want to, but imagine giving a three- or a five-year-old a list of lawyers.”

July 16, 2018 - Cardozo School of Law sadly announces the passing of Jonathan Rohr, beloved member of the Cardozo community.

Jonathan graduated from Cardozo summa cum laude in 2009, where he was a Senior Editor of the Cardozo Law Review. He was the recipient of the Louis D. Brandeis Award for graduating first in his class; the Felix Frankfurter Award for outstanding academic achievement, diligence and judgment; and the Benjamin N. Cardozo Writing Award for the best written work for civil advocacy. He was a Dean’s Distinguished Scholar and a member of the Order of the Coif.

Jonathan was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at Cardozo from 2015-17. Last year, he joined the faculty of the University of Tennessee College of Law.

“Jonathan was an exceptional teacher, scholar, friend and human being,” said Dean Melanie Leslie. “He was beloved by his students and the Cardozo faculty. We are heartbroken.”

Jonathan specialized in corporate law, securities regulation and contracts.

His students at Cardozo described him as an exceptionally skilled, passionate and caring professor who delivered mesmerizing lectures that made difficult concepts come to life.

He was a prolific scholar whose work has been published in the Delaware Journal of Corporate Law, and the New York University Journal of Law and Business. His most recent work, Blockchain-Based Token Sales, Initial Coin Offerings, and the Democratization of Public Capital Markets, is co-authored with Cardozo law professor Aaron Wright (CSL ’05) and will be published in the Hastings Law Journal. He was also a contributor to Columbia Law School’s Blue Sky Blog and Law360. 

Prior to graduating from Cardozo, Rohr earned a Bachelor’s of Music from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with highest honors and highest distinction, and a Master’s Degree from the Eastman School of Music, where he studied opera. He performed as a soloist with a variety of orchestras and opera companies including the North Carolina Symphony, Greenwich Symphony Orchestra and Opera Saratoga.

After graduating from Cardozo, he practiced law for several years, primarily in the New York office of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP.

Jonathan is survived by his wife, Jing Alexis Rohr; his parents, Loraine and Greg; and his brother, Steven. There will be a memorial service for Jonathan this Friday, July 20, beginning at 3 p.m. in Hickory, North Carolina, at Bass Smith Funeral Home. The address of the funeral home is 334 Second Street NW, Hickory, North Carolina, 28601.

Dean Leslie will attend the memorial service on Friday. If you’d like to send a card or note to Jonathan’s family, please send it to the Dean’s Office before Thursday, July 19 at 5:30 p.m., and she will ensure that it is delivered.

Cardozo School of Law was named one of the top law school's in the country for training lawyers in the music industry.

The FAME Center for Fashion, Arts, Media and Entertainment law is proud to congratulate four Cardozo alumni on Billboard Magazine's top music law schools 2018.

Billboard noted that these four Cardozo Graduates are are among the best lawers driving today's music industry.

Jason Boyarski '00, represented the artist and songwriter Prince, negotiating the adminstration of his music publishing catalog.

Michael Seltzer '92, is the SVP at Universal Music Group.

Julie Swidler '82 is EVP and General Counsel at Sony Music Entertainment

Monika Tashman'00 is a Partner at Fox Rothschild representing clients in the music and entertainment industry.

"The FAME Center at Cardozo Law, which focuses on fashion, the arts, media and entertainment, offers more than 20 music-related courses that tackle topics including patent and trademark law, antitrust and intellectual-property issues, and music law. The school continually adds events to enrich the students’ experience: The Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal recently hosted Back to the Future of Music Sampling, and the school also staged New York Right of Publicity Law: Reimagining Privacy and the First Amendment in the Digital Age."

Read about Billboard's top law schools here, 

Read about Billboard's list of top music lawyers here.

21 mentors and mentees, all participants in Cardozo’s alumni/student mentoring program, came together for a networking event and panel on October 3, at the offices of Weil, Gotshal and Manges LLP.

Spearheaded by the Offices of Alumni Affairs and Career Services and co-chaired by Noel Williams ’87 and Eric Hochstadt ’03, the program allows current law school students to connect with Cardozo alums in the professional legal world.

Students gain guidance and feedback from their mentors’ firsthand experiences, while mentors are able to use their time in the professional world and learned experiences to give back to the students of the current day, who are just embarking on chosen career paths.

Student mentees obtain valuable career advice, feedback, and legal knowledge through this program. The mentor-mentee relationship is designed to foster maximum productivity and commitment to Cardozo by encouraging strong collegial relationships and recognition of accomplishments. 

Williams said, "I don't think many people outside of the process realize that there can be substantial benefits for the mentor as well as the mentee. The program allows the mentor to "give back" to the school, the mentee, and ultimately the legal community and allows the mentor to keep up with current goings on in Cardozo. The mentee is able to discover inside things about a possible career that may be lesser known.”

Williams continued, “benefits to the mentee include learning to acclimate to law school and the legal profession; helping gain control of his or her law school and professional career and both the mentor and the mentee can mutually strengthen their communication and interpersonal relationship skills, and also allows both to practice giving and receiving feedback. The program is constantly changing. Currently, we attempt to maintain the relationships as well as add new mentees annually. In practice, it has always varied according to the preferences of the individuals involved.”

Inez Lano, Director of Alumni Affairs, said, “the event was an example of our alumni having a solid understanding of the importance of paying it forward to our students and helping them become their best selves. Students benefit from alumni who share their advice and experience, propelling the students to enter a professional setting confident and prepared, ready to lead.”

The 2018 Mentor Program proved to be a great success with 65 alumni mentors and 99 first-year mentees. The 2019 Mentor Program will follow a similar format in terms of creating new pairings for first-year students.

For more information about the mentor/mentee program, contact Erin Handler at ehandler@yu.edu.

Congratulations to Michael Seltzer '92. As Senior Vice President of Business Affairs at Universal Music Group he heads the Transactional Deal team and was the point person on one of the biggest music deals in recent memory, signing Taylor Swift to a global recording agreement.

Mr. Seltzer worked closely with the Chairman and CFO of UMG and handled every aspect of the deal from the negotiation of terms with the artist, her manager and lawyers, to drafting and closing on the documents. He is listed as one of the top music lawyers in the country by Billboard Magazine.

Click here to read more about the deal.

Parvin K. Aminolroaya ’08 has been promoted to Partner at Seeger Weiss LLP. Ms. Aminolroaya has been an attorney at Seeger Weiss for a decade, working on class action and other major federal complex litigations.

Ms. Aminolroaya was a trial team member in the mass tort MDL against a pharmaceutical manufacturer of testosterone replacement therapies, resulting in bellwether verdicts totaling nearly $300 million. She was also involved in the “Dieselgate” emissions lawsuit against Volkswagen, which resulted in one of the largest corporate settlements in history. Currently, Ms. Aminolroaya is a member of the Seeger Weiss team appointed to the leadership of the national prescription opiates litigation against several drugmakers and distributors.

The firm’s success in these cases has earned Seeger Weiss recognition as Law360’s Practice Group of the Year in two categories, Class Actions and Product Liability. Ms. Aminolroaya has been consistently selected as a Super Lawyers Rising Star since 2014.

Ms. Aminolroaya graduated from Cardozo School of Law in 2008. After working as a legal intern at the SEC and elsewhere, she was hired as an associate at Seeger Weiss, where her practice has focused on complex commercial litigation involving consumer protection, investment fraud, and antitrust and pharmaceutical injury. She is the fifth Cardozo alum of the firm’s current ten partners, joining founding partners Christopher Seeger and Stephen Weiss, both class of ’90, David Buchanan ’93 and Jeffrey Grand ’02.

An active Cardozo alumna, Ms. Aminolroaya is Co-Chair of the alumni group Cardozo Women, working to bring new programming designed to support women leadership in the legal profession. She is a member of Cardozo’s Alumni Association Executive Committee, the Dean’s Council on Diversity and Inclusion: Committee on Careers, and was recently honored by the BALLSA Alumni Group as a Cardozo Game Changer.

She was a recipient of the 2016 Alumni Association Young Leadership Award and the Jacob Burns Medal for outstanding contribution to Moot Court.

“Parvin and Seeger Weiss demonstrate the Cardozo commitment to paying it forward and using career success to reinvest in the Cardozo community,” said Inez Lano, Director of Alumni Affairs. “For me, and many others, Parvin is a true inspiration, and a wonderful mentor to young professionals—as well as her peers.”

Founding partner Stephen Weiss, who has served as a member of Cardozo’s Board of Overseers for the past 18 years, stated that “Parvin represents everything that is right about Cardozo. She came to us straight from law school already imbued with strong analytical capabilities and a commitment to securing justice for our clients. We’re enormously proud of Parvin, as well as our alma mater.” 

Seeger Weiss LLP has been among the leading supporters of the Cardozo community for many years through scholarship and other means. The school named the room which houses the Cardozo Law Review in the firm’s honor.

For more information visit seegerweiss.com. 

Michael Wildes '89 was officially sworn in on January 14 as the new Mayor of the City of Englewood. 

Michael Wildes is a Managing Partner with the immigration law firm of Wildes and Weinberg PC in New York City, Miami and New Jersey. He serves as Counsel to Lincoln Center, and several international/corporate law firms. He was also an adjunct professor at Cardozo from 2011-2013.

Wildes begins a three year term as Mayor. He previously served Englewood as its mayor from 2004-2010.