A Jamaican rum maker and a Mexican liquor distributor walk into a bar. Funny thing is, it’s the New York Bar. When a Jamaican distiller needed to negotiate a contract for the distribution of its rums in Mexico, why did it engage a New York lawyer to negotiate and draft the contract? Because, before they … Continued

DEAR FORUM: In order to attract new clients in the cryptocurrency space, I raised the prospect of accepting cryptocurrency as payment for legal fees with our firm’s management committee. I think that offering clients a cryptocurrency payment option will make us more attractive to some clients that are participating in the growing cryptocurrency marketplace and … Continued

Constant change is the new normal. This is as true for lawyers as it is for society at large. Just as change is the law of life, it has become the life of law practice. Indeed, the legal profession has experienced more change over the past 20 years than it did over the last two centuries. I went to … Continued

“If you can’t explain something simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” – Albert Einstein, physicist I have found that if I ask for help on a project or carrying that third cup of coffee back to the team, people are generally supportive and not only willing, but happy to help. It’s simple, short, measurable help; … Continued

New York is ranked as the third most popular place in the world for international arbitrations, according to the International Chamber of Commerce. And by a landslide, New York is the most frequently used venue in the United States for international arbitrations, based on 2018 statistics released by the American Arbitration Association’s International Centre for … Continued

Judith Kaye completed the writing, but not the editing, of her autobiography before she died. She had begun, her daughter tells us in a prefatory note, to rearrange her narrative into chronological order, but had not finished the job. Her children, finding it presumptuous to finish it for her and “too weird” to publish the … Continued

In Part I of this series (91 N.Y. St. B.J. 35 (Sept./Oct. 2019)), we compared, in outline form, prior landlord-tenant law with New York’s new Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 (HSTPA). In this article, we discuss HSTPA’s rent-regulation provisions. Most see HSTPA’s passage on June 14, 2019, as a tectonic shift in … Continued

“The masters are content to say, ‘The elect will understand, there is no need to write for others.’“1 Benjamin Nathan Cardozo, an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court who before that was the New York State’s Chief Judge, is known for his legal essays, writing style, and influence on the American legal system.2 He … Continued

I submit this letter as my declaration of candidacy for the position of President-Elect of the New York State Bar Association. My qualifications are based upon my full life’s experiences, including 35 years of law practice, and my demonstrated understanding of and commitment to our Association. After graduation from the University of Michigan Law School … Continued

Of the approximately 183,000 lawyers in New York state, only three percent of them live and work in the rural areas that spread across thousands of square miles. This has caused a scarcity of attorneys in the state’s small-town communities and a mounting access to justice crisis that up until now had largely gone unaddressed. … Continued