A reflection by Claude M. Millman
Since much of my litigation work involves opposing the office of the New York City Corporation Counsel, it’s an honor to practice law at the boutique firm that produced the 80th Corporation Counsel, Peter L. Zimroth. It’s an even greater honor to reflect on his contributions as part of our 80th anniversary celebration at Kostelanetz LLP.
While Peter is best known for his service as head of the City’s Law Department from 1987 to 1989, when Mayor Edward I. Koch appointed him to that job, Peter was a Kostelanetz partner. He was a partner at our firm from 1980 to 1987.
I’ve been at Kostelanetz since 2011. In addition to handling complex commercial civil litigation, I work on matters involving New York City and New York State procurement rules, government ethics and conflicts of interest laws, and lobbying regulations. In those areas of law, one can still feel the reverberations of Peter Zimroth’s public service. Peter died in 2021.
Peter was born in Brooklyn on January 11, 1943. He attended Columbia College and Yale Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of The Yale Law Journal. After clerking for Justice Abe Fortas of the U.S. Supreme Court, he served as an Assistant United States Attorney in Manhattan.
In 1970, Peter joined NYU Law School as a Professor. While there, he published Perversions of Justice (1974), a book about the “Panther 21” criminal trial (1970-71), which was ultimately against 13 members of the Black Panther Party, who were acquitted. He wrote that, while the prosecutor had launched a “propaganda war” to “convince the jurors, and beyond them the public, that the Black Panther Party was dangerous,” by the end of the trial, most of the jurors were convinced, “not that the defendants were dangerous, but that the District Attorney and Judge were.”
A few years later, Peter was recruited by that prosecutor’s successor, Robert M. Morgenthau. He served in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office from 1977 to 1980. He was Bob Morgenthau’s Chief Assistant.
He left the Manhattan DA’s Office to join Kostelanetz, which he later described as “a broadening experience.” He said: “The demands of the courts and clients are really different from those in public life. Every case that you have, you have to learn a new thing, a new business, a new industry.”
Peter Zimroth was Mayor Koch’s top lawyer at a time when confidence in City government was low, and the very structure of New York City government was under attack. City Hall had been rocked by corruption scandals involving City procurement contracts, principally involving the Parking Violations Bureau of the City’s Department of Transportation. At the same time, civil rights lawyers were claiming that the City’s most powerful branch, the “Board of Estimate,” was unlawful. Those claims were vindicated by the Supreme Court in Board of Estimate of NYC v. Morris, 489 U.S. 688 (1989). As a result, the City’s government was restructured by a Charter Revision Commission that met during Peter’s tenure, with the support of some of the 500 lawyers that he supervised.
While I arrived at Kostelanetz about 25 years after Peter Zimroth left our firm, I feel a connection that goes beyond our shared relationship to our storied boutique:
Peter began his legal practice as a prosecutor at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan. I served in that office as well, as did our founder, Boris Kostelanetz — all three of us working there during different eras.
The City’s current procurement system, which I managed as the City Chief Procurement Officer from 1998 to 2000, was designed during Peter’s tenure with the City as a reaction to the Parking Violations Bureau prosecutions of the 1980s. My procurement law practice today still involves the rules written under his watch.
Peter’s tenure as Corporation Counsel is known for its impact on the Charter through the 1988 and 1989 revisions, which were foundational for my work as Executive Director of the 1999 Charter Revision Commission and my service as a Charter Revision Commissioner in 2001. My practice today involves Charter provisions drafted during his City service.
While Peter was a Kostelanetz partner, he married Estelle Parsons, a New York theater icon. There’s a connection, even there, as my wife runs a theater company in New York City.
Finally, Peter’s observation about the challenge and thrill of learning “a new business, a new industry” with each matter that one takes on in private practice resonates with me. In my work at Kostelanetz, I have represented for-profit companies, not-for-profit organizations, and individuals, in just about every field and industry.
It’s exciting to work at a firm that has been led, over its 80-year history, by luminaries such as Peter Zimroth. It’s particularly satisfying to walk the path that Peter helped pave.