Former Federal Bar Council President Mark C. Zauderer has written a memoir, titled Counsel, the Courtroom is Open: Lessons from More Than a Half-Century in Law and Life, which is going to be published on April 14 and distributed by Simon & Schuster.

The book is dedicated to his son Daniel Zauderer, and all profits will be donated to Daniel’s non-profit organization Grassroots Grocery. 

The book starts with a deeply personal examination of Mark’s early life in Brooklyn Heights and the Hudson Valley and the relationships framing that period of his life. He then talks about his early career and explains the reasons he opted to found his own firm with several others after clerking for U.S. District Court Judge Robert Shaw in the District of New Jersey and spending several years at a large New York law firm. 

Mark also describes his public service representing the chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals as the lead trial lawyer in a lawsuit to get more funding for the courts, serving on the Commission on the Jury, sitting on the Commercial Division Advisory Council, and assisting the judges in the British Virgin Islands establish a commercial court to handle complex commercial cases. Mark diverges from examining his legal career to talking about his boat.

Anecdotes About His Cases

In the majority of the book, Mark tells anecdotes about his cases, using stories to illustrate particular areas of the law or high-profile litigants. 

In one case, in connection with the alleged theft of funds from a trust by a lawyer for the benefit of a grandson of one of the founders of National City Bank, Mark litigated against the law firm and reached a settlement that restored all funds.

In another case, Mark helped a law firm enforce a fee agreement signed by the widow of a major real estate player in New York in the post-World War II era. 

He also represented the wife of Brooke Astor’s son, Tony Marshall, in connection with the criminal charges against him arising from his management of his mother’s financial affairs. Mark helped the couple navigate the continuous press presence and counseled them after Tony Marshall was convicted. 

Also, Mark learned about the underside of Broadway when he represented the associate producer of On Your Toes in connection with his efforts to bring the show to Broadway in a lawsuit charging the producer of misdirecting funds.

Included in the book are behind the scenes accounts of his representation of a presidential cabinet secretary in a lawsuit brought by former senator and presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy; his defense of former New York Stock Exchange Chairman Richard Grasso in a suit brought by Attorney General Eliot Spitzer; and his defense of a major New York law firm in a case arising out of events in Russia.

In the book, Mark also addresses the future of the legal profession, ADR, where law firms are going, and professionalism as a guide to being a lawyer.

Chatting With Mark

I sat down with Mark during the Winter Meeting to talk about the book, his reasons for writing it and the writing process itself. Mark explained that Mario Cuomo was the first one to suggest he write a memoir, twenty years ago. He finally sat down to write for two reasons. 

First, he wanted to leave something for his son, to whom he has dedicated the book. 

Second, Mark sought to share many experiences, particularly some personal experiences, that he had not shared with most people.

He dedicated the book to Daniel, whom he and his wife adopted at birth and of whom Mark is very proud. Daniel was raised in Larchmont, New York. He loved the theater and attended theater camps. He graduated from Trinity College, worked for start ups, and became English as a Second Language certified. He taught ESL in Costa Rica and then earned a Master’s Degree at Teachers College, Columbia University. Daniel taught at a charter school in the Bronx and started a community refrigerator also in the Bronx, which grew to become the Grassroots Grocery, a 501(c)(3) organization, whose mission is to address food insecurity. 

Grassroots Grocery

Daniel was also at the Winter Meeting, and he stopped by while I was talking to Mark and explained how Grassroots Grocery fulfills its mission. It gets free produce from Hunts Point Market, Baldor (the restaurant food distributor) and Fresh Direct, among others, and, using local volunteers, distributes the food to neighbors. Grassroots Grocery has seven full-time staff members and many local volunteers.

Grassroots Grocery also works on a project basis with law firm summer associates to make and package sandwiches to distribute to food-insecure Bronx residents. The firms donate food to Grassroots Grocery, and the sandwiches are distributed by volunteers to local neighbors. 

Mark has been busy speaking about the book. An interview was aired on PBS the first week of February and he has been interviewed on podcasts. The book is in the window of the Fifth Avenue Barnes & Noble, where he will appear for a book signing. It is available for preorder on Amazon and will be sold at Hudson News, Target, and on the Barnes & Noble website. Mark will also visit law schools as part of a book tour.

The Profession’s Changes

Mark talked about the changes in the legal profession over the course of his career. He is optimistic, but not confident, that the profession will retain a dedication to professionalism in spite of the changes to the morals of the marketplace. All professions – accountancy, law, and medicine – have shared a common element of professional principles. 

When Mark began his career, law firms were based in a single city. They became institutions, and lawyers learned the culture of the firm and the moral stricture of the practice. In the 1980s, The American Lawyer started writing articles about money made by some firms. There were also stories about investment banking careers, focusing on income. At the same time law firms began expanding into many cities both nationally and internationally to meet the needs of clients. The focus on money and the expansion changed law firms. 

Another factor in the change has been the acquisition of groups of lawyers based on their “books of business.” Lawyers coming from other firms are not part of the culture of their new firms and have no loyalty to their new firms; this has created tension between lawyers who have spent their careers in the firms and the lawyers coming in laterally. The pressure to retain the lateral partners has resulted in compensation schemes that have altered the character of firms. Many New York firms had lock-step compensation schemes that provided modest annual increases in compensation. As firms have grown, the compensation model has altered, along with the culture.

Mark emphasized in his book that professionalism must be the guiding principle. Professionalism means adhering to ethical standards, using independent judgment, acting civilly to all, keeping commitments, and speaking the truth.

AI and the Law

Mark said that AI is here to stay. It is clearly helpful. His major concern arising from his experience as an arbitrator and private judge is that decision-makers will substitute AI judgment for their own judgment. It is easy to feed facts into AI and have an opinion come out. In addition, there is the issue of hallucination, where AI makes up stuff.

Also, law firm associates can feed information into a program and it will give them a legal analysis connecting legal principles and facts. Mark does not know how AI is going to impact firms. There has been a lot of focus on how to use it. Ideally, AI will be used as a tool for the basis of decision making and will not be the decision-maker.

Mark ended the interview by talking about writing his book. He said that it was easy to write about the law, but hard to talk about his personal experiences. Mark drafted the book by dictating it to his personal assistant, sometime while driving to his summer home on Fire Island or from his home in Nevis, West Indies.