01-08-2025
Michael Cardozo, 84, New York City's Longest-Serving Chief Lawyer, Dies
Michael A. Cardozo, a litigator for corporations and professional sports organizations who served longer than anyone else as New York City's chief legal officer, a role in which he oversaw cases defending stop-and-frisk policing and the city's ban on smoking in bars and restaurants, died on July 23 at his home in White Plains, N.Y. He was 84.
His daughter Sheryl Cardozo confirmed the death without specifying the cause, saying only that it followed a brief illness.
Given his surname, Mr. Cardozo once said, he was destined to become a lawyer. His paternal great-grandfather's cousin was Benjamin Cardozo (1870-1938), an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court who was appointed by President Herbert Hoover in 1932.
'Some people thought I was going to be a lawyer from the day I was born,' he told
From 1996 to 1998, Mr. Cardozo served as president of the New York City Bar Association, which was established in 1870 to ferret out corruption in the court system. One of its first investigations led to the resignation of Albert Cardozo, a State Supreme Court justice who was Benjamin Cardozo's father.
Michael Cardozo was a partner at Proskauer Rose (formerly Proskauer, Rose, Goetz & Mendelsohn) when he was appointed as the city's corporation counsel by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in 2002. He stepped down in 2014, returning to Proskauer after setting a record for longevity in that municipal role, which was established in 1839.
As corporation counsel, Mr. Cardozo presided over almost 700 lawyers, who juggled a caseload of some 80,000 lawsuits and other legal matters at the city's Law Department.
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