Friedlander reflects on his time as counsel for New York City

June 2, 2015 By Rob Abruzzese Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Jeffrey D. Friedlander receives a citation from former Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2005. Friedlander recently announced that he will retire from the Law Department, where he has worked for the last 44 years. Photo by Susanne Elstein.

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The New York City Law Department is not a well-known city agency, but it is an integral one that has a role in nearly all matters that affect people within the five boroughs. For more than 44 years, Jeffrey D. Friedlander has served the agency in various capacities, and even though most New Yorkers have probably never heard of him, he has certainly played a role in their lives.

“Jeff has always been the ship that has guided us through,” said Law Department Internal Communications Director Kate O’Brien Ahlers. “He’s the consistent person who has been here through all of the tribulations that the city has gone through.”

Friedlander, 68, grew up in Manhattan and got his law degree from New York University. He moved to Boerum Hill around the time he went to work at the Law Department. During the last 20 years or so, he has served as the first assistant corporation counsel, the department’s second-in-command, under Mayors Bill de Blasio, Michael Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani.

During that time, the Law Department had a role in creating the Civilian Complaint Review Board, expanded the Landmarks Preservation Law and implemented public campaign financing laws. The corporation counsel doesn’t make policy, but does provide legal counsel and defense to the city when it affects these changes.

Working under different mayors often presented unique issues, since the various mayors held exceedingly different philosophies. For instance, Bloomberg was strongly in support of stop-and-frisk — something that de Blasio put an end to. Throughout it all, Friedlander’s job was to protect the interests of the city itself.

“Elections have consequences. I’ve been here for 44 years, but it’s not one job,” he said. “I mean, I’m here essentially in one firm, but every time there is an election all your clients change. It’s different people, all the clients change, and each poses different challenges.”

Of all of the things that Friedlander had a role in, he is most proud of helping with the anti-apartheid legislation in the 1980s. That legislation prohibited the city from doing business with South African companies that didn’t comply with the Sullivan Principles, which required equal treatment of its citizens. He also helped the city to divest public employee pension funds from companies doing business in South Africa.

“It wasn’t an Earth-shattering change, but it was significant because New York City does do business with very large corporations,” Friedlander said of the anti-apartheid legislation. “It had an effect. Nelson Mandela was here, and he said it was a significant thing in helping rid his country of apartheid.”

During his 44 years with the Law Department, which currently has 16 departments and 730 lawyers, Friedlander did serve as its head for two brief stints in 1997 and 2014. He admitted that he would have liked to have served as the department’s head for a while longer, but doing so wouldn’t have allowed him to stick around as long, since corporation counsels are often changed with every new mayor.

Friedlander recently announced that he will retire from the position, although he hasn’t decided on a date yet. He said he will find another job — preferably within the city — and is unlikely to surrender his bar association membership. One of the things he does plan on doing is increasing his work with charitable foundations, including a called The Heart And Soul, which he serves as president. The group provides meals for the needy.

With his time at the Law Department soon to be over, Friedlander, in speaking to the Brooklyn Eagle, reflected on his legacy. He said he hoped that his dispassionate service to the city rubbed off on others, particularly the younger lawyers whom he mentored.

“I love this job,” he said. “It has given me the opportunity to do virtually anything that I’ve wanted to do in almost every area of the law. I’ve been talking to people asking, ‘What should I do?’

“If there are city positions that I could work in and assist that mayor, I’ve made it clear that I’m very happy to continue to do that,” he said. “I don’t want to separate myself — I don’t think I could entirely — from New York City.”