By:Angela Marshall
But when Levin graduated from Brown University, he didn-t have any idea what he wanted to do for a living. He quickly ruled out business, medicine and teaching, and decided that law school might actually be a good idea or at least buy him some time until he figured out what he wanted to do. Within a couple of weeks, he was hooked. Here was a career in which he could actually make a difference in people-s lives, he thought. By 1968, he had earned two law degrees from the NYU School of Law.
Levin, of Rockville Centre, is now president of the New York State Bar Association, the largest voluntary state bar in the country, over 73,000 members strong. During an interview last month about his tenure as president, Levin laughed at the ironic notion that he does many of the same things his father did, including sitting for hours with a phone pressed to his ear. But now he doesn-t find it boring at all.
When Levin, a shareholder and director of the Mineola law firm Meyer, Suozzi, English and Klein, was elected last year, he knew he didn-t want to just be a figurehead; he wanted to bring about real change. And he believes he has.
One of his first goals was to add diversity to the bar association. He said that in the past, there has always been a lot of talk about this, but no real change. This year, he appointed minority members to leadership positions and actively recruited others to join the organization.
He also worked with other bar leaders to increase the fees paid to lawyers representing indigent clients. They succeeded, bringing the in-court rate up from $40 an hour to $75 and the office rate up from $25 to $60. Levin said that prior to the increase, lawyers lost money for every hour they spent working with indigent clients.
One of Levin-s other goals during his presidency has been to fight the negative image lawyers have in this country. He recalled his father saying of the American legal system, This is the worst system in the world except for all the others. A true lover of the Constitution, Levin agrees. He said, This country wouldn-t be what it is without the judicial system.
And despite the proliferation of lawyer jokes, he thinks most Americans agree. He pointed to the 2000 presidential election and said that even though it is still being debated, people accepted the Supreme Court-s ruling and there were no riots. Americans are committed to the role of law, he said.
Levin thinks the dim view of lawyers that makes jokes about the profession so rampant is a problem of perspective. He said that if you asked most people who say they don-t like lawyers how they feel about their own lawyer, they would say they like him or her; it-s all the others who are the problem. It is easy to see why someone who has gone through a legal case isn-t going to like the lawyer on the other side, he said, but that doesn-t make them bad people.
Levin has to deal with this reality every day. He practices municipal law, which often has three sides in a given case the government entity, the developer or other interested party and community civic groups. Because there is a relatively small group of lawyers on Long Island practicing this type of law, they often switch hats from case to case, representing a village one week, and then representing a client fighting the same village the next week in a different case. Levin said attorneys have to fight hard, and the competition is fierce, but You can-t afford to make enemies. Respect is key.
For him, the challenge is exciting. It makes it fun to come to work every day, he said.
Tom is one of the hardest workers I know, said Lois Carter Schlissel, managing partner at Meyer, Suozzi, English and Klein. He not only knows the law, he knows how to get things done.
Levin first got involved in the state bar to battle a proposed mandate to make pro bono, or volunteer, work mandatory. He thought it was a terrible idea, not because he doesn-t believe in pro bono work but because of the consequences he thought such a mandate would have. The desire to help people should come from the heart, he said. If it were made compulsory, he felt that lawyers would just go through the motions, not really taking their client-s needs to heart.
The mandate was rejected, and instead attorneys formed a group to encourage a strong voluntary commitment, with Levin as a member. After all, this was a subject that meant a lot to him. Levin said he knew right away that if he was going to be a lawyer, he wanted to be one who made a difference. He has donated his time to the Rosa Lee Young Childhood Center in Rockville Centre for 35 years and the Childcare Council of Nassau County for 25 years. He was awarded the 2002 Nassau/Suffolk Legal Services Commitment to Justice Award for his tireless support of pro bono work in the community.
It-s been very satisfying to me, Levin said of his career thus far. He called it a terrific opportunity not only to do well but to do good.
Levin and his wife, Iris, have two daughters.
