Michael Sackheim is senior counsel in the New York office of Sidley Austin LLP where he concentrates on derivatives regulatory, transactional and enforcement matters. Michael is a past Chair of the New York City Bar Derivatives Regulation Committee, and he is the managing editor of Futures & Derivatives Law Report (Thomson Reuters, publ.). Michael is also the co-editor of a new legal treatise, The Virtual Currency Regulation Review (November 2018, Law Business Research Ltd).
Jeremy R. Feinberg is the Statewide Special Counsel for Ethics and the Commercial Division at New York's Office of Court Administration (OCA). Among his duties at OCA, he provides ethics training, support and advice to the judges and non-judicial employees of the Unified Court System.
Mr. Feinberg is a regular speaker and panel moderator on legal ethics at Continuing Legal Education (CLE) programs around New York and has taught legal and judicial ethics as far away as Florida and Alaska. He is an adjunct professor of ethics and professional responsibility at Columbia Law School and has served as a guest lecturer at a number of New York area law schools.
He is the Chair of the New York City Bar Association's Committee on Professional Ethics, a committee which issues formal ethics advisory opinions to lawyers on behalf of that bar association. He has also served on the City Bar's Council on Judicial Administration, Committee on Professional Responsibility and Committee on Professional Discipline.
In his role as OCA's Statewide Special Counsel for the Commercial Division, Mr. Feinberg provides support and assistance to all of the Commercial Division courts throughout
New York, and serves as a liaison between the Bench and the commercial Bar. He serves as a liaison to the Executive Committee of the New York State Bar's Commercial and Federal Litigation Section.
Before joining OCA in January 2006, Mr. Feinberg was a senior litigation associate at Proskauer Rose LLP, where he handled sports law, commercial litigation, and ethics matters for the firm and its clients. He served as law clerk to Hon. Judith S. Kaye, Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals for two years in 1996-1998. He is a 1995 graduate of Columbia Law School and a 1992 graduate of Columbia College.
Nicole Hyland is a Partner at Frankfurt Kurnit Kurnit Klein & Selz. She counsels lawyers on ethics issues, such as advertising and social media use, conflicts of interest, legal fee disputes, escrow issues, multijurisdictional law practice, and more. She also represents lawyers in disciplinary proceedings, disqualification motions and malpractice cases.
Ms. Hyland serves on the New York State Bar Association’s Committee on Standards for Attorney Conduct (COSAC), which is responsible for drafting and proposing amendments to the New York Rules of Professional Conduct. Since 2008, she has been a member of the Association of Professional Responsibility lawyers (APRL), a national organization of ethics and professional responsibility lawyers and she is co-chair of the Professional Ethics Committee of the New York Women’s Bar Association. Ms. Hyland is the immediate past Chair of the Committee on Professional Ethics of the New York City Bar Association, which provides guidance to New York state lawyers on a wide range of ethical issues, issues formal and informal written opinions, and operates the Ethics Hotline, a free resource for all New York state attorneys.
Ms. Hyland frequently writes and lectures on legal ethics and professional responsibility issues. She is the co-author, along with Professor Roy Simon, of the 2015, 2016 and 2017 editions of Simon’s New York Rules of Professional Conduct Annotated.
Ronald C. Minkoff is a partner in the Litigation Group and Head of the Professional Responsibility Group. Mr. Minkoff is one of New York State’s leading practitioners in the field of attorney ethics and professional responsibility, representing attorneys in a wide variety of matters including law firm partnership disputes, attorney discipline cases, legal fee disputes and legal malpractice and professional liability cases on behalf of both plaintiffs and defendants. He also provides ethics opinions and advice to a wide variety of law firm clients. In addition, he also serves as an expert witness in legal malpractice lawsuits and attorneys’ fees disputes.
Mr. Minkoff is a member of several Bar Ethics Committees, including the Committee on Standards of Attorney Conduct (COSAC) and the Committee on Professional Discipline of the New York State Bar Association. He is also the Chair of the Task Force on Professionalism of the New York County Lawyers’ Association, a former member of the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Professionalism, and a past President of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers. He has written extensively for the New York Professional Responsibility Report, The Professional Lawyer, The New York Law Journal, and other publications and is the co-Managing editor of the New York Legal Ethics Reporter. Mr. Minkoff has served as an Adjunct Professor of Professional Responsibility at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, New York University School of Law, Fordham Law School, and Brooklyn Law School. He is a frequent lecturer on the law of lawyering.
In addition, Mr. Minkoff represents businesses and individual professionals and executives in a wide variety of commercial litigation, including business break-ups, securities lawsuits, and domestic and international trade disputes. He represents several law firm partners and law firms in partnership disputes, lateral transitions and law-firm dissolutions. And he represents an internationally known petrochemist in an oil and gas venture dispute. Mr. Minkoff was a member of Chief Judge Lippman’s Task Force on Commercial Litigation in the 21st Century. He is also a member of the Council on Judicial Administration of the New York City Bar Association and of the Board of Directors of the New York County Lawyers’ Association.
Mr. Minkoff was named Best Lawyers’ 2011 New York Ethics and Professional Responsibility Lawyer of the Year. He was also recognized by Best Lawyers for his work in Commercial Litigation, Ethics and Professional Responsibility, Legal Malpractice, and Regulatory Enforcement matters. He has been named a New York-area “Super Lawyer” for Professional Liability: Defense Work and Business Litigation by Super Lawyers magazine for nine consecutive years.
Mr. Minkoff is a graduate of Columbia Law School (JD, 1980). He was an attorney at the Nassau County Legal Aid Society (1980-83), and was associated with Obermaier Morvillo & Abramowitz, P.C. (1983-85) and Owen & Fennell (1985-87). Mr. Minkoff was a member of Fennell & Minkoff (1987-94) and Beldock Levine & Hoffman (1994-2001) before joining Frankfurt Kurnit. He is admitted to practice in New York.
Representative cases:
Fragin v. First Funds Holdings LLC and Moses & Singer LLP, 2016 WL 4256984 (Sup. Ct. N.Y. Co. 2016);
Grynberg v. BP Exploration Operating Co. Ltd. 127 A.D.3d 553, 7 N.Y.S.3d 125 (1st Dep’t (2015);
Lakah v. UBS AG, 996 F.Supp.2d 250 (S.D.N.Y. 2014); QBE Ins. Co. v. Maloof, Lebowitz, Connahan & Oleske, 2105 WL 7188350 (Sup. Ct. N.Y. Co. 2015);
In re Lerner, 112 A.D.3d 144 (1st Dep’t 2013);
Frauzblau v. Cassin and Cassin LLP Index: 105949/10 Supreme Court New York County (2010);
Carl v. Cohen and Greenberg Traurig, LLP 23 Misc.3d 1110(A) 886 N.Y.S.2d 66 (2009);
Conopco, Inc. v. Wein, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 46945 (S.D.N.Y. 2007);
Trepel v. Dippold, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 78050 (S.D.N.Y. 2006).
Since February, 2013, Howard Schneider serves as a Senior Consultant at Charles River Associates where he provides business consulting and expert witness services. Prior to that, from June 2010 to February 2013, Mr. Schneider was a Managing Director of another consulting firm. For the five years prior to that, Mr. Schneider served as the General Counsel at MF Global, a NYSE listed futures commission merchant and securities broker/dealer, operating in the futures and derivatives markets around the world. He was formerly a partner at Katten Muchin Rosenman, LLP (“KMR”) where he concentrated in corporate, securities and derivatives/futures law and provided legal counsel in the financial markets area.
Prior to joining KMR, Mr. Schneider served as the first General Counsel of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. At KMR’s predecessor firm, he was Chairman of the Corporate Department and was also Chairman of the Firm. Mr. Schneider is also a past Chairman (1997-2001) of the American Bar Association Committee on the Regulation of Futures and Derivative Instruments (Business Law Section). He is a member of the City Bar Association, and the New York State and American Bar Associations, as well as a member of the Futures Industry Association. He served as Chairman of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York Committee on Commodities Regulation from 1982-85. From 1997 to 2018, Mr. Schneider served as a Board member of PJM Interconnection, LLC, the operator of the largest power grid in the United States.
Mr. Schneider is a frequent lecturer and writer on legal topics. He received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University and his law degree, with distinction, from the Cornell University School of Law, where he was also an Editor of the Cornell Law Review.