JUSTICE LEWIS FRIEDMAN MEMORIALIZED AT NYU LAW SCHOOL

Contact: Joan Dim
(212) 998-6849
In a fitting tribute to the life and work of the late Justice Lewis Friedman, his wife, Bernice Friedman, and his family have made a $100,000 gift to New York University Law School to establish the Justice Lewis Friedman Public Interest Summer Fellowship in Immigration Law. Each year up to two NYU Law students will work for the summer at the New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG) in the area of Immigration Law. In addition, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) has made a gift of $5,000 to the NYU Law Library’s immigration collection in memory of Justice Friedman.

In his 13 years of service on the bench in New York State, Justice Friedman heard a full assortment of civil cases--everything ranging from divorces and tenant complaints to medical malpractice and torts. He became a housing judge in January 1985, acting Supreme Court Justice in 1988 and in 1993, a justice of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan. He was assigned to the court’s Commercial Division and presided over about 700 complex commercial cases.

Born in Brooklyn, Lewis Friedman graduated from NYU’s Washington Square College in 1963 and was a cum laude graduate of NYU Law School in 1966. Following graduation, he worked his way up from an assistant district attorney for New York County to chief of the Appeals Bureau. He then worked in private practice as a partner at the firm of Litman, Friedman, Kaufman & Asche. In 1976, he was again called to public service as special assistant state attorney general working part-time with the Special Attica Prosecutor Alfred J. Scotti.

Justice Friedman was especially devoted to working in organizations dealing with Jewish migration. At the time of his passing in 1998, he was a vice president and director of HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and a director of NYANA, the New York Association for New Americans, which resettles Jews in the region. Justice Friedman’s lifelong commitment to the interests and well-being of immigrants makes the Friedman Fellowship in Immigration Law at NYU Law School a most appropriate legacy.

“Lewis Friedman was representative of the best of NYU,” said Dean John Sexton of NYU Law School. “He embodied the values of service that we strive to instill in our students. Through the Friedman Fellowship, students will apply their talents and energy to an area near and dear to his heart and will carry on his work in perpetuity. Throughout his life, Justice Friedman set an example to which all can aspire.”

08/27/99