Robert Abrams

Robert Abrams (born July 4, 1938) is an American attorney and politician. He served as the attorney general of New York from 1979 to 1993 and was the Democratic nominee for the 1992 United States Senate election in New York.

Robert Abrams (born July 4, 1938) is an American attorney and politician. He served as the attorney general of New York from 1979 to 1993 and was the Democratic nominee for the 1992 United States Senate election in New York.

Early life and education

Abrams was born in the Bronx, New York, in a Jewish family, the son of Benjamin and Dorothy Abrams. He has one sister, Marlene (Abrams) Kitrosser. He graduated from Christopher Columbus High School, Columbia College, and the New York University School of Law.

Career

Later career

Upon leaving government, Abrams joined the now-defunct Stroock & Stroock & Lavan as a partner. He has remained active in civic affairs in New York. In 1996, the New York University School of Law established an annual lecture program, the Attorney General Robert Abrams Public Service Lecture whereby each year a prominent public figure who has performed exemplary public service addresses the students, faculty and alumni of the law school to urge students to consider all or a portion of their career to be dedicated to public service. During the ensuing 25 years, United States senators, governors, attorneys general and judges have appeared as guests, including United States Senators Joe Lieberman from Connecticut, Heidi Heitkamp from North Dakota, Tom Udall from New Mexico, Vermont Chief Justice Jeffrey Amestoy, Governors Jim Doyle of Wisconsin, Mike Easley of North Carolina, Ted Kulongoski of Oregon, and attorneys general Karl Racine of Washington, D.C., Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, and Letitia James of New York. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg appointed Abrams in 2005 to serve on the New York City Charter Revision Commission. In 2006, New York Governor-Elect Eliot Spitzer appointed Abrams to serve as co-chair of his Policy Advisory Committee on Governmental Reform for his Transition, and New York Attorney General-Elect Andrew Cuomo appointed him Executive Chair of his Transition Committee. In 2008, New York Governor David Paterson appointed Abrams to serve on the Board of the United Nations Development Corporation. On May 9, 2009, New York Governor David Paterson renamed the Justice Building at the Empire State Plaza in Albany the Robert Abrams Building for Law and Justice. Also in 2009, Attorney General elect Eric Schneiderman appointed Abrams to serve as Honorary Co-chair of his Transition Committee. In 2010, New York's chief judge, Jonathan Lippman, appointed him to be a member of the Advisory Council for the Retired Attorney Pro Bono Program. In 2012, Governor Andrew Cuomo appointed Abrams as co-chairman of a Moreland Commission to investigate the preparedness and response of the utilities in New York State to Superstorm Sandy which took the lives of numerous New Yorkers and caused billions of dollars of damage. At the conclusion of its hearings and deliberations, the Commission released a report which resulted in changes to New York State law and practices by utilities. He also served on numerous boards of community not for profit organizations: Fund for the City of New York, Citizens Union Board Member and President of the Citizens Union Foundation, America Israel Friendship League, and Council for a Secure America. Abrams was a leader of the Soviet Jewry Movement in the United States. Serving as chairman of the Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry, he attended several international conferences, in Paris where delegates met to plan strategy for the movement; in Brussels, where Golda Meir, U.S. Senator Frank Church, Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, and civil rights leader Bayard Rustin addressed the convocation; and in Jerusalem at a world plenum which addressed Soviet Jewish absorption issues in Israel. In 1991, Abrams delivered the Raoul Wallenberg Lecture in Moscow before several hundred leaders of Jewish communities from each of the fifteen republics of the USSR. He also served on the corporate boards of Sterling Bancorp and Sterling National Bank for 18 years. On October 16, 2018, Abrams and Public Advocate Letitia James (running for New York State Attorney General) were at the steps of New York City Hall for a press conference where he announced his endorsement of James in the race. James became the first woman and the first African American to be elected to the position of New York State Attorney General and appointed Abrams as co-chair of her transition team. Abrams resolved a controversy between the Jewish community and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) concerning the church's proxy baptism practice. He established joint programs between the two communities, including initiating a joint Jewish-LDS delegation to visit Israel in 2016¹ to commemorate the 175th anniversary of LDS Apostle Orson Hyde's dedicatory prayer at the Mount of Olives declaring Jerusalem and its environs to be the land of the Jewish people. Abrams was presented with the Thomas L. Kane award by the J. Reuben Clark Law Society of the LDS Church on June 9, 2022, in Salt Lake City, in recognition of his leadership efforts. In March 2021, Abrams' memoir, The Luckiest Guy in the World: My Journey in Politics, was published by Skyhorse Publishing.

References

External links

Robert Abrams - Partner: Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP NYU Law School Attorney General Robert Abrams Public Service Lecture series [U.S.Senator Tom Udall https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTcxGkXiK9U&t=29s] NYU Law School Attorney General Robert Abrams Public Service Lecture series [U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp * NYU Law School Attorney General Robert Abrams Public Service Lecture series [Attorney General Karl Racine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MPqHLrpwSo&t=28s NYU Law School Attorney General Robert Abrams Public Service Lecture series [Attorney General Josh Shapiro * NYU Law School Attorney General Robert Abrams Public Service Lecture series [Attorney General Phil Weiser * NYU Law School Attorney General Robert Abrams Public Service Lecture series [Attorney General Michael Turpen

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