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Boston Globe
6 days ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Michael Cardozo, 84, New York City's longest-serving chief lawyer, dies
'Some people thought I was going to be a lawyer from the day I was born,' he told Advertisement From 1996 to 1998, 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. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 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 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, 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. Advertisement As the city government's top lawyer, he successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2007 that the federal courts could resolve disputes between localities and foreign governments over delinquent property taxes. The case, Permanent Mission of India v. City of New York, involved the Indian and Mongolian missions to the United Nations in New York. Cardozo successfully oversaw the case in which a federal judge ruled in 2009 that legislation by the City Council enabled Bloomberg to seek a third term, despite limits imposed by the city charter. He also defended the Police Department's stop-and-frisk strategy, whose critics said it disproportionately singled out Black and Hispanic men (the tactics were ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge in 2013). He defended a city policy of inspecting carry-on bags in the subway; argued in favor of a provision that would have allowed the city to borrow $2.5 billion to pay off 1970s-era debt; and argued, again successfully, for the city's right to impose smoking bans in bars and restaurants as well as additional gun controls. In 2019, back at Proskauer, Cardozo represented Judith Clark, the getaway driver in a 1981 robbery of a Brink's armored car in Rockland County, New York, in her efforts to win parole after serving 37 years in prison. She won the case. Cardozo retired from the law firm in 2022, a month after Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York named him to the state ethics commission. In a recent statement on Instagram, Bloomberg said he had recruited Cardozo 'not only for his sharp legal acumen, but also for his unassailable integrity and lifelong commitment to the city's civic health.' Michael Alan Cardozo was born June 28, 1941, in Manhattan. His mother, Lucile (Lebair) Cardozo, was a school administrator; his father, Harmon Cardozo, was a real estate executive. Advertisement Cardozo grew up on the West Side of Manhattan and in Westport, Connecticut. After graduating from Staples High School in Westport, he earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Brown University in 1963 and a Juris Doctor degree from Columbia Law School in 1966. He went on to clerk for Judge Edward C. McLean of U.S. District Court in Manhattan and then joined Proskauer in 1967; he became a partner in 1974. When David Stern, a law school classmate who was also a partner at the firm, was named commissioner of the NBA in 1984, Cardozo began representing the NBA, and later MLS and the NHL as well. In 2002, as the city's new corporation counsel, Cardozo inherited a department that was scattered in dozens of locations after being displaced the year before by the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, which was a block from the main office. At the Law Department, he created new divisions that focused on volunteer work and specialized in labor law and other issues, and he refused to settle suits against the city that were deemed frivolous. 'We certainly want to send the message,' he told The New York Times in 2013, 'that if you don't bring what we view to be a meritorious case, you're going to have a big battle on your hands.' During his time with the Law Department, the city settled a number of lawsuits involving police abuse and also defended against challenges to the beefed-up security it imposed after the 9/11 attack. Reflecting on his tenure as the city's chief legal officer, Cardozo told students at Columbia Law School in a 2014 lecture that in defending or enforcing existing laws on behalf of the city, he was sometimes compelled to take a stance that he may have disagreed with personally. One example, he said, was when the city appealed a court ruling declaring that the state's prohibition on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. Advertisement In addition to his daughter Sheryl, Cardozo is survived by his wife, Nancy (Cogut) Cardozo, whom he married in 1965; another daughter, Hedy Cardozo; and three grandchildren. Cardozo was particularly focused on the judicial system. He lobbied for higher pay for judges, who were overworked, he said. (At one point, he was a member of the New York State Commission on Legislative, Judicial and Executive Compensation.) And he expressed frustration with the court system over what he called its repeated delays in trial decisions. In 2009, he said publicly that the 'entire culture' of the judicial system 'must be changed' to 'improve judicial accountability and, with it, judicial performance.' For those comments, he was rebuked in a letter published in The New York Law Journal and signed by 18 of 20 state Supreme Court justices. In an online tribute after Cardozo's death, Bret Parker, the executive director of the New York City Bar Association, singled out Cardozo's 'long-standing commitment to the rule of law and tireless advocacy for an independent judiciary.' This article originally appeared in
The Independent
15-05-2025
- The Independent
Paper routes nixed for younger kids in New York, though teen carriers have mostly faded away
For decades, a carveout in New York's child labor laws allowed kids as young as 11 to legally partake in the time-honored tradition of a paper route. Flipping papers into suburban hedges, bicycling through snow squalls, dodging dogs and getting stiffed for tips became a rite of passage for generations of youths. But a change to the law quietly made via the state budget this month makes clear the job is now not allowed for anyone under 14 years old. The move was first reported by Politico. The change comes even though paper boys and girls have mostly gone the way of phone booths, mimeograph machines and their urban 'newsie' forebears who shouted 'Extra! Extra!' on street corners. While many teens used to take on paper routes as after-school jobs, that became rarer decades ago as more daily newspapers switched to early morning deliveries. Newspapers are now increasingly online and tend to rely on adults with cars to make home deliveries, according to industry watchers. 'The need for a workforce of kids to go throwing newspapers on stoops is just a thing of the past,' said attorney Allan Bloom, an employment law expert with the Proskauer firm. Lawmakers made the change as part of a broader update of child labor laws. Bloom likened it to a 'cleanup' as lawmakers streamlined the process for employing minors and increased penalties for violating child labor laws. Diane Kennedy, president of the New York News Publishers Association, said she was not aware of any newspapers in New York using youth carriers. Christopher Page recalled buying his first guitar on earnings from a paper route started in the late '70s in suburban Clifton Park, north of Albany. 'I just had a 10-speed that I destroyed. It was truly rain or shine. I'm out there riding the bike or even in the winter,' said Page. When dogs chased him on his bike, Page would ward them off with his shoulder bag full of newspapers. At age 13, Jon Sorensen delivered the Syracuse Herald-American on Sunday with his 11-year old brother in the Finger Lakes town of Owasco from the back of their mother's Chevy station wagon. 'That was back when papers were papers — a lot of sections and a lot of weight,' recalled Sorensen, now 68 and Kennedy's partner. 'I can remember trudging through the snow. ... I don't think I ever dropped one, because if you did you had to be heading back to the car and pick up another copy.' Sorensen stayed in the newspaper business as an adult, covering state government and politics for papers including New York Daily News and The Buffalo News. 'The hardest part of the job wasn't delivering the paper, it was collecting,' Sorensen recalled. 'It wasn't always easy to get people to pay up.'
Associated Press
15-05-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Paper routes nixed for younger kids in New York, though teen carriers have mostly faded away
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — For decades, a carveout in New York's child labor laws allowed kids as young as 11 to legally partake in the time-honored tradition of a paper route. Flipping papers into suburban hedges, bicycling through snow squalls, dodging dogs and getting stiffed for tips became a rite of passage for generations of youths. But a change to the law quietly made via the state budget this month makes clear the job is now not allowed for anyone under 14 years old. The move was first reported by Politico. The change comes even though paper boys and girls have mostly gone the way of phone booths, mimeograph machines and their urban 'newsie' forebears who shouted 'Extra! Extra!' on street corners. While many teens used to take on paper routes as after-school jobs, that became rarer decades ago as more daily newspapers switched to early morning deliveries. Newspapers are now increasingly online and tend to rely on adults with cars to make home deliveries, according to industry watchers. 'The need for a workforce of kids to go throwing newspapers on stoops is just a thing of the past,' said attorney Allan Bloom, an employment law expert with the Proskauer firm. Lawmakers made the change as part of a broader update of child labor laws. Bloom likened it to a 'cleanup' as lawmakers streamlined the process for employing minors and increased penalties for violating child labor laws. Diane Kennedy, president of the New York News Publishers Association, said she was not aware of any newspapers in New York using youth carriers. Christopher Page recalled buying his first guitar on earnings from a paper route started in the late '70s in suburban Clifton Park, north of Albany. 'I just had a 10-speed that I destroyed. It was truly rain or shine. I'm out there riding the bike or even in the winter,' said Page. When dogs chased him on his bike, Page would ward them off with his shoulder bag full of newspapers. At age 13, Jon Sorensen delivered the Syracuse Herald-American on Sunday with his 11-year old brother in the Finger Lakes town of Owasco from the back of their mother's Chevy station wagon. 'That was back when papers were papers — a lot of sections and a lot of weight,' recalled Sorensen, now 68 and Kennedy's partner. 'I can remember trudging through the snow. ... I don't think I ever dropped one, because if you did you had to be heading back to the car and pick up another copy.' Sorensen stayed in the newspaper business as an adult, covering state government and politics for papers including New York Daily News and The Buffalo News. 'The hardest part of the job wasn't delivering the paper, it was collecting,' Sorensen recalled. 'It wasn't always easy to get people to pay up.'
