Herbert Rubin

Herbert Rubin accurately personifies that much-abused description of “iconic”, as profiled in the New York Times. Herbert was a founder of Herzfeld + Rubin more than sixty years ago. He has been and continues to be the unique “go-to” and “solution finding” lawyer. During his long and active career as a lawyer in the federal and New York State courts, he has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, U. S. Court of Appeals for the 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th, 6th, 9th, 10th and 11th circuits, the D.C. Circuit, and the U.S. Court of International Trade, as well as the New York State Court of Appeals, each of the NY State Appellate Divisions and trial courts throughout the State. The hundreds of appeals he has argued in the various state and federal courts include the widest variety of issues in the areas of product liability, commercial, real estate, regulatory, estate law and international law.

An enthusiastic alumnus of NYU Law School, he has been heavily involved in the affairs of that law school, where he was the Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review. After service in World War II, as Senior Instructor of Military Law at Signal Corps Officer Candidate School, he became a member of the NYU Law School faculty, teaching creditors’ rights and bankruptcy among other courses. He also taught creditors rights and bankruptcy as a Professor of Law at Rutgers Law School. A Past President of the NYU Law Review Alumni Association, he with his wife, the late Justice Rose Luttan Rubin, have endowed the professorship in International Law, presently occupied by Professor Jose Alvarez, and are donors of the NYU Law School International Law Library, among other scholastic incentives for students of NYU Law School. Herbert and his wife have sponsored, and he has participated in, more than twenty-four annual NYU Law School Rubin International Law Seminars. He has received from NYU Law School its Alumni Distinguished Service Award and it’s Judge Edward Weinfeld Medal. He has also supported scholarships in CCNY and Hunter College, the undergraduate schools of which he and Judge Rubin were respectively graduates. Among other peers, awards have been the Defense Attorneys Association Medal and The Jewish Lawyers Guild Tzaddick Award.

Herbert has been a member of The New York Law Journal Board of Editors for over thirty years and is presently on the Emeritus Board. He was also a member of Senator Moynihan’s Judicial Screening Committee for over twenty years and continues to serve as a member of Senator Schumer’s Judicial Screening Committee. He has served as a member of the New York State Banking Board, and of the Governor’s Judicial Nominating Committee. For over 25 years, he served as a member of the Committee on Judicial Selection, respectively, of Mayors Lindsay, Beame, Koch, Dinkins and Giuliani. He was also a member for 25 years of the statutory New York City Housing Court Advisory Council. Also, he was a member of the New York City Commission to Revise the City Charter in 1999 and 2000.

He is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Judges, Past President of the Queens County Bar Association, a past member of the New York State Bar Association House of Delegates and chair of its Supreme Court Committee, among others, as well as a member of various committees of the New York City Bar Association and American Bar Association.

Herbert, for more than 40 years, has been a Trustee of the Northwell Health Hospital Group and is present as a member of its Board Overseers. He has been an honoree and a cabinet member of the Lawyers Division of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies – UJA, and Jewish Lawyers Guild, an honoree of the NYU Joint Disease Hospital, and other community groups, and is active in various other philanthropic organizations.