Bill has been a litigator and trial lawyer at numerous firms throughout his career, first at Sullivan & Cromwell, and then at Rogers & Wells, where he was a Senior Partner. In recent years, he has continued his litigation practice in federal and state courts and has handled complex commercial litigations and arbitrations, and individual matters.

Bill is also a prolific lecturer, on both legal and nonlegal topics, both at law schools and universities and otherwise. He has also testified before the American Bar Association and the New York State Senate on numerous issues.

In addition to his practice as a lawyer, Bill has had a rich history of involvement in both politics and in the community. Bill has been honored by appointment to policy-making positions by two Presidents, two Governors, and the County Executive. Bill's talents and wide-ranging interests were recognized not only in his service in the United States Office of Economic Opportunity under Sargent Shriver (where he administered Legal Services Programs for the poor in New England, New York, New Jersey and Puerto Rico), but also by President Jimmy Carter, who appointed him to his Task Force on Criminal Justice, by Governor Hugh Carey, who named Bill to his Task Force on Elementary and Secondary Education, where Bill chaired a subcommittee, and by County Executive Andrew Spano, who appointed Bill to his Task Force on Land Use and Planning. Bill's deep and consistent dedication to parks, and to preserving green space and historic sites was recognized by Governor Mario Cuomo, who appointed him in 1984 to the Taconic State Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation Commission (Westchester, Putnam, Dutchess and Columbia Counties), and he rose to become its Chair from 1988-1996, and earned special praise for his efforts. In 2004 he again became a Taconic Region Commissioner. County Executive Spano appointed Bill to Westchester's Parks, Recreation and Conservation Board, where he was elected, and now serves, as its Chair. He was a member of Greenburgh's Recreation Commission from 1976-1984. Earlier, he obtained the first grass sitting park in New York history, Cobble Hill Park, by successfully leading a petition drive against developers and by battling city bureaucracy. Many other groups have called on Bill leadership qualities. In Westchester, he has chaired a Crime Victims Assistance Agency, and groups seeking employment for the poor and for ex-offenders.

Major Cases in Co-op Law; Judge's Decision Denying Recusal Upheld; Denial of Intervention After Party Obtained Dismissal From Action; Imposition of Sanctions for Frivolous Litigation. Bill represented Anne Owen, the owner of a New York City Co-op penthouse, in four actions by a disgruntled owner on the floor below who claimed that inadequate Co-op waterproofing action, and water infiltration from Owen's plants and planters, had caused extensive damage to her apartment. After a trial lasting weeks (Altman, J.), the jury unanimously rendered a verdict in favor of Bill's client and the co-op and against the disgruntled owner (Leventritt).

In Leventritt v. Eckstein, Owen, 520 East 86th Street, Inc. et al., 206 A.D.2d 313, 615 N.Y.S.2d 2 (1st Dep't 1994), four years after the trial judge disclosed a social relationship with a member at the Co-op's law firm, Leventritt moved to recuse the Trial Judge (Altman, J.) from the case. And two years after successfully obtaining dismissal as a party defendant in an action between Owen and the Co-op, Leventritt moved to a second judge to intervene and attend all conferences in that action. Both motions were denied, as Bill urged, and the appellate court affirmed the denial.

Ultimately, as Bill urged, the trial court also imposed monetary sanctions of $10,000 each on Leventritt and her counsel for commencing “the underlying vexatious litigation seeking recusal and intervention”. The appellate court upheld these sanctions as “appropriate in light of the repeated pattern of frivolous conduct within the meaning in NYCRR 130-1.1,” but directed that they be paid not to defense counsel, but to the Lawyer's Fund for Client Protection of the State of New York and to the Clerk of the Court for transmittal to the State Commission of Taxation and Finance.

New Ground Broken in Village Election and Referendum Law; Citizen Petitioners Obtain Their Choice of Referendum Date, and Village Elections Moved to November. Bill made a significant contribution to Election Law and Village Law in New York State in Matter of Broda v. Monahan, 309 A.D.2d 959, 767 N.Y.S. 2d 111 (2d Dep't 2003). New York's Village law provides for village elections in March, unless the date is changed by a local referendum. Petitioners in Ardsley and Dobbs Ferry sought to move the date of their village elections to the General Election day in November, and they gathered enough signatures to hold a referendum vote on this on the General Election day, November 4, 2003, the date specified in the petition.

The Village Boards did not cooperate, forcing the petitioners to sue to have the referenda held in November. Bill handled the cases for both sets of petitioners. Supreme Court, Westchester County held that both sets of petitions had adequate signatures – twice the normal number – to name the date for each referendum, rather than have the date for the referendum set by the Village Board. It also agreed with Bill that the petitions had been submitted in accordance with Village Law §9-912 on procedures for citizen-initiated petitions to be considered by a vote of qualified Village voters. But it held that Municipal Home Rule Law §24 required the petitions to be submitted at least 45 days before the referendum date named, and found that the Ardsley petition had been, and that referendum should proceed, but the Dobbs Ferry petition had not. The Ardsley Trustees did not appeal. Thus, Bill succeeded in having the Ardsley referendum held on November 4, 2003, and Ardsley voted to move its village elections to November.

The Dobbs Ferry petitioner appealed, and the reviewing court held, as Bill urged, that Municipal Home Rule § 24 was not applicable, but it set forth another technicality which it said barred the referendum. Even though the Dobbs Ferry petitioners ultimately did not prevail in the courts, the Dobbs Ferry Trustees, concerned about the effect of denying and frustrating the citizen petition altogether, agreed to hold a referendum at the Village election time in March, 2004; it passed, and Dobbs Ferry's Village elections are now in November.

In Case Involving Cancer Claims, Deposition Allowed of Company President Who Knew Company's Drug Was Withdrawn From Use. In Holman v. ICN Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 98 Civ. 0674, U.S. Dist, Lexis, 20017 (S.D.N.Y. 1999), a product liability action, Bill again overcame an attempt to foreclose discovery and expanded its scope. Bill represented a plaintiff with squamous cell carcinoma in his eye who for many years had used Trisoralen, an ICN drug he took for its stated purpose of avoiding sunburn. He claimed that Trisoralen, which had no cancer warning on its package or instructions, had caused the cancer and that his eye had to be operated on to remove the tumor, resulting in blindness.

In 1997 ICN made a worldwide recall of Trisoralen and kept if off the market. ICN attempted to shield its President from a deposition, asserting that he had no personal knowledge of the decisions to withdraw and not reinstate Trisoralen, but was only told of them by others. The Court rejected ICN's position and held, among other things, that under liberal discovery rules even knowledge based on “what he was told by others” made him subject to deposition.

1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics Case; Participating Nations Must Abide By Rules By Rules Set By International Olympic Committee. Bill received international coverage when he argued and won a case involving the 1980 Winter Olympics, Liang Ren-Guey v. Lake Placid 1980 Olympic Games, Inc., 49 N.Y.2d 771, 403 N.E.2d 178, 426 N.Y.S. 2d 473 (1980). Bill represented the International Olympic Committee (“IOC”), which sets rules for the Olympic games (the “Games”), and the interest of its local surrogate operating the games, the Lake Placid Committee. Plaintiff was a Taiwanese athlete who sought an injunction staying the Games unless the IOC and the Lake Placid Committee allowed him, and other athletes representing Taiwan, to use the name “Republic of China” and its flag and emblem, and the anthem written by Sun Yat-Sen which was used in mainland China before the Communists controlled it.

The People's Republic of China was participating in the Olympic Games after an absence of over twenty years, and in October 1979, after the United States withdrew diplomatic recognition from Taiwan, the IOC's Executive Board had adopted a resolution allowing People's Republic Olympic Committee to use the name, “China” and Red China's official flag, anthem and emblem, and requiring the Republic of China, if it wished to participate, to take the name of Taiwan, and to submit alternatives for the flag, anthem and emblem it would use.

The Supreme Court of Essex County, New York, where Lake Placid is located, granted a preliminary injunction barring the People's Republic from using the name, flag, anthem, and emblem reserved for it by the IOC. Bill briefed and argued the case on an expedited basis to the Appellate Division in Albany, and was successful in obtaining a complete and unanimous reversal, 72 A.D.2d 439 (3d Dep't 1980). The motion for a preliminary injunction was denied and the complaint was dismissed, reinstating the IOC's rulings as a basis for Taiwanese participation. The court held that under the Olympic Charter, which the United States had deferred to for the Olympic Games, the Games are governed by the IOC, and the rules it set for the Games, including those about flags, emblems, names and anthems, must be followed during the Games. The court noted that the Taiwanese athletes could exercise their right to free speech, and sing and say whatever they wished in the village of Lake Placid , but while participating in the Olympic Games they were under the jurisdiction of the IOC. It also held that the recognition of foreign governments was a “political question” in the province of the President, and courts had no power to review it. The Appellate Court also allowed the United States Attorney General to file a statement of interest of the United States.

The Court of Appeals, to which Bill argued, unanimously affirmed the Appellate Division, noted our government's interest in supporting the IOC's petition, and said it would not interfere in a “dispute which has at its core, the international ‘two-Chinas' problem”.

The progress and holdings of this case, on the eve of the Olympic Games where the United States Hockey Team won its gold medal, were reported, with sketches, in the national and international news media virtually daily.

Contract, Fraud and Securities Case Remanded to State Court After Improper Removal to Federal Court. Bill addressed another significant jurisdictional issue in Milton R. Barrie Co., Inc. v. Levine and Morroni, 390 F. Supp. 475 (S.D.N.Y. 1975). Bill represented Barrie – the purchaser of Amberlite Plastics Corp. Barrie sued the sellers in New York State Court, alleging that they had induced the purchase by fraud, and had breached certain contractual warranties. Barrie then amended its complaint to allege that the material misrepresentations violated § 12(2) of the Securities Act of 1933.

The sellers removed the action to Federal Court on the basis of diversity of citizenship between them and Barrie, and Barrie through Bill successfully moved to remand the case to State Court. The Court (Knapp, J.) noted that §22(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 prohibited removal of any case “arising under” the Securities Act which had been brought in a State Court of competent jurisdiction, as Bill had done here. This was an express “Act of Congress” exception to 28 U.S.C.S. §1441(a), the diversity removal statute. The Court agreed with Bill's arguments in every respect:

•  that that claim did ‘arise under” the Securities Act, that it alone would not be removable, and

•  that all those causes of action “derived from a single transaction – the sale of Amberlite” – and the common law claims (fraud, breach of contract) were not “separate and independent” claims; and

•  that the Securities Act claim was not so “baseless” or “farfetched” as to constitute a fraud on the Federal court's jurisdiction.

The Court then adopted Bill's position and remanded the matter to State Court.

Default Judgment In Bankruptcy Proceeding Set Aside, Answer of Actress Allowed. In a case where Bill represented the actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, Oliner v. McBride's Industries, Inc. et al., 102 F.R.D. 561, 39 Fed. R. Serv. 2d (Callaghan) 1280 (S.D.N.Y. 1984), Bill successfully set aside a default judgment and obtained the right for Ms. Gabor to file an answer. An action in bankruptcy had proceeded since 1972, alleging a conspiracy, and in Spring, 1983, a default had been entered against Zsa Zsa, and her answer stricken. The court (Tenney, J.), held, as Bill argued, that she had shown “good cause” for setting aside the default, that there was no “evidence of willful default” nor “substantial prejudice resulting from the default”, or that Zsa Zsa “lacks a meritorious defense”.

Jurisdiction over Out-of-State Corporation; Single Visit to New York to Sign Loan Commitment Held Sufficient. Schwartz, et al. v. Wamsley Development, Inc., 1983 U.S. District Lexis 17877 (S.D.N.Y. 1983), was another seminal case in which Bill helped to define and expand the conditions making out-of-staters subject to the jurisdiction of New York's courts. Bill represented two New York brokers who sued Wamsley, a South Carolina corporation, for $72,000 in commissions for obtaining a construction loan from a Louisiana lender. Wamsley moved to dismiss the action for lack of personal jurisdiction, or alternatively to transfer it to South Carolina.

Wamsley did not maintain an office or even a telephone in New York. Aside from exchanging telephone calls and letters with plaintiffs, Wamsley's only contact with New York was a meeting in New York City on the loan commitment, which Wamsley reviewed but did not sign. Plaintiffs represented that the meeting lasted two hours, involved substantial discussions and negotiations by Wamsley, and that Wamsley had agreed to the major terms of the loan. Wamsley asserted it found the loan terms unsatisfactory, did not engage in substantial discussions or negotiations, and later submitted a counterproposal. The Court (Conner, D.J.), agreeing with Bill, held that the presence and participation of Wamsley in the meeting was not a “casual visit” but was “purposeful activity” which was “intended to further the transaction at issue”, and constituted the “transaction of business” in New York , making Wamsley subject to personal jurisdiction here. Wamsley's activity met the “minimum contacts” Constitutional requirement for due process.

Negligence, Medical Malpractice and Legal Malpractice All In One Case; Florida Law, Not New York Law, Applied To Shipboard Injury; Comparative Negligence Precludes Summary Judgment. In a complex case involving the areas of negligence, medical malpractice and legal malpractice, Van Buren v. Worby Borowick Groner, L.L.P., 9 A.D.3d 276, 779 N.Y.S.2d 484 (1st Dep't 2004), Bill obtained a denial of defendant's summary judgment motion, and on appeal Bill's victory was affirmed unanimously.

Bill represented a left-handed CPA who had slipped and fallen on a wet metal cruise ship deck in a light, misty rain, and fractured his left wrist, after he was invited to play basketball by a member of the crew and a sports celebrity working for the cruise line. There were no warning signs, verbal warnings, or other protective measures. Van Buren was taken to the ship's doctor, who gave him painkillers and twisted the wrist, but did not x-ray or reduce or set the wrist properly, and did not place it in a hard cast. In spite of the complex nature of the fracture, Van Buren was not taken to a hospital in St. Maarten, West Indies , where the ship was docked and the facilities were superior. The wrist had to be “re-broken” and “re-reduced” when Van Buren reached New York City four days later, and a full set of x-rays revealed a complex displaced comminuted fracture, for which proper x-raying, setting and hard cast are critical.

Van Buren claimed he never regained proper use of his wrist, and it grew progressively less functional, affecting his business and his life. Four months later, he retained the defendant law firm to handle the matter. However, the firm never commenced an action, and became aware well after a year from the accident that the applicable Statute of Limitations, set forth in the passenger's ticket and in statute, was only one year for shipboard accidents.

Van Buren retained Bill to sue the firm for legal malpractice. New York law provides that the plaintiff in such an action must show that if the original action had been brought timely, it would have been successful. Thus, the action involved the issues of negligence and medical malpractice aboard ship, as well as legal malpractice of the law firm. The defendant law firm's motion for summary judgment was denied (Shafer, J.), and the lower court held that the defendant law firm had missed the applicable statute of limitations. On appeal, the Appellate Division unanimously affirmed the denial.

The firm argued that Van Buren had assumed the risk of an accident by playing basketball and thus his claim would have been barred, but Bill proved that the cruise ticket specified that Florida law applied, and the law firm finally conceded this after initially contending that New York law applied. Carefully analyzing Florida cases, Bill showed, and the Court held, that under Florida law “assumption of risk is not a complete defense to actions involving sports injuries unless the risk is inherent in the sport itself”, and that “a fall on a basketball court caused by slickness from mist or rain is not a risk inherent in basketball, and a Florida Court would therefore have apportioned fault between plaintiff and the ship on the basis of comparative negligence”. The Court also agreed with Bill that there were issues of fact concerning whether Van Buren's “injury was treated by the ship's doctor in accordance with the standard of practice accepted in the community . . . exacerbated by the lack of treatment during the four days after the accident . . . and could have been treated onshore in [St. Maarten or elsewhere before New York].” Thus, summary judgment was precluded for defendant on the medical malpractice issue.

Extension of Long-Arm Jurisdiction Over Out-of-State Defendant: Visits to New York and Mailing Ring to and From New York Sufficient. Harry Winston, Inc. v. Waldfogel, 292 F. Supp. 473 (S.D.N.Y. 1968) (Motley, U.S.D.J.) was a landmark case of Bill's upholding personal jurisdiction in New York over an out-of-state defendant. It is cited frequently in leading texts on long-arm jurisdiction. Bill represented the famous jeweler Harry Winston, Inc. (“Winston”), which had delivered a 14.37 carat diamond ring with a purchase price of $53,500 to Waldfogel, a Massachusetts resident. Waldfogel kept the ring for seven months and then returned it, claiming he did not owe the purchase price. Winston sued in Federal Court, New York for the purchase price of the ring, and Waldfogel moved to dismiss the action for want of personal jurisdiction, or to change the trial venue to Massachusetts .

Bill successfully defeated the motion and kept the suit in New York. Waldfogel had visited Winston in 1964 and took a diamond ring for his wife “on memorandum”, which is essentially “on approval”, but then returned it soon after, having found a preferable ring elsewhere. In 1967 Waldfogel returned to Winston and left with a 13.39 carat diamond ring, then returned it for sizing, and a few days after getting it back he telephoned to say his wife wanted a “better-shaped” ring. Winston then, in July 1967, mailed him a 14.37 carat, pear-shaped diamond ring “on memorandum”. About a month later, Waldfogel brought both rings to New York City , returned the 13.39 carat ring, and took the 14.37 carat ring back with him to Massachusetts and kept it until March 1968.

From September 1967, Winston had sent to Waldfogel monthly invoices for $53,500, a letter of thanks for the purchase, and an insurance appraisal of the ring, and had made telephone calls to Waldfogel seeking payment. Waldfogel had not responded negatively to these, but denied in court that he had agreed to purchase the ring or to the price. The federal court, applying state law, held that Waldfogel's two New York City visits to Winston in summer 1967 involving the 14.37 carat ring, and Winston mailing it to Waldfogel, and the later mailings, were part of Waldfogel's “common purpose” to buy a ring for his wife, and tied them “into a single transaction” constituting the “transaction of business” within New York State, entitling its courts to jurisdiction under New York's Civil Practice Law and Rules § 302(1).

The Court then accepted for jurisdiction purposes Bill's showing that a contract had been made, noting that Waldfogel's holding the ring for six months after notice that Winston regarded it as sold constituted an acceptance under Uniform Commercial Code §2-206, because Waldfogel had failed to make an effective rejection. Analyzing many cases, the Court agreed with Bill that Waldfogel's two visits to New York City about the 14.37 carat ring were “purposeful acts performed by [defendant] in this State in relation to the contract, albeit preliminary or subsequent to its execution”, and this satisfied the case law requirements of New York's Court of Appeals. Bill also succeeded in having the federal court deny defendant's motion for a change of venue to Massachusetts ; the case stayed in New York.

Member, American Bar Association

Member, New York State Bar Association

Member, Westchester County Bar Association

Member, Association of the Bar of the City of New York

•	Editor, Yale Law Journal
•	Journal of the International Commission of Jurists
•	Trial Magazine
•	New York Law Forum
•	New York State Bar Journal
•	New York Law Journal
•	Catholic Lawyer

• J.D., Yale University Law School, 1961  (Dean's List)
• B.A., Cornell University, 1956 (Government major; Dean's List)

Admitted to Practice:

•	New York, 1962
•	United States District Court, Southern District of New York, 1962
•	United States District Court, Eastern District of New York, 1962
•	United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, 1962
•	United States Supreme Court, 1966

U. S. Navy, Communications Officer; stationed in New York City and London, 1956-1958

U. S. Navy, Active Reserve Duty, Mobilization Distribution Team 3-1. Brooklyn; held rank of Lieutenant Commander, USNR