By Angela Marshall
Schlissel of Rockville Centre is one of the first women to ever be appointed a managing partner for a major Long Island law firm. According to the American Bar Association, only five percent of law firm managing partners are women.
"I'm very proud to be in a firm where she is the managing partner," said Andrew Turro, a litigation partner also from Rockville Centre.
Turro believes the choice was made based on the leadership qualities Schlissel has shown during her 21 years with the firm. He said the galvanizing feeling by partners at the firm is that Schlissel is a "class act."
"She absolutely got this on merit and the fact that she is a female is incidental," confirmed Tom Levin, who heads the firm's Municipal Law, Land Use and Environmental Compliance department.
Levin, also of Rockville Centre, has been with the firm since 1989 and said he has watched Schlissel's legal and administrative skills grow "terrifically" over the years.
She was elected unanimously by her partners earlier this month to succeed William J. Cunningham III. Cunningham was appointed by Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi to serve as chief deputy county executive.
Schlissel, 51, has come a long way since the first time she applied to the firm and was rejected. In 1975, following a clerkship for the New York State Court of Appeals, the young lawyer first applied to the firm Suozzi, English and Cianciulli. She was not hired.
But Schlissel kept track of the firm, learning of its merits from respected colleagues. She worked hard to gain legal experience and went in for another interview. She was hired in 1981 and became a partner with the firm in 1986.
Keeping the firm on the cutting edge is one of Schlissel's goals. She would also like to see the firm grow. "It's an easy thing to say," she said. "But it has to be done in a way that makes sense."
Like her predecessors, Schlissel said she will focus on what types of legal services are going to be most needed in the future and build up departments to serve those needs.
During the early 1990s, Schlissel was part of one of these departments when the firm realized that sexual harassment in the work area was a growing problem. She and other lawyers were given specialized training to deal with these types of cases.
Since then Schlissel has become a leader in fighting discrimination, especially sexual harassment, in the Long Island workplace through her work with corporations, unions, lectures and published articles.
Although Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein is headquartered in Mineola, the firm has other offices. Schlissel hopes to strengthen the firm's New York City presence and to expand into Suffolk County.
Schlissel thinks it is her commitment to communication and pride in her work that made her partners decide she was right for the position.
John Klein, former Suffolk County Executive and chairman of the board for the firm, said, "The partners made this decision because it was clear that based on merit, performance, energy and intellectual depth Lois Schlissel was the obvious candidate."
Schlissel is married to Elliot Schlissel, a Lynbrook attorney, and has two daughters, Erika, an art major at Syracuse University, and Elizabeth, a senior at South Side High School.
