About Us

Roy Simon was the Howard Lichtenstein Distinguished Professor of Legal Ethics at Hofstra Law School from 2003 – 2011, and is now a Distinguished Professor of Legal Ethics Emeritus. He graduated from Williams College and from New York University School of Law, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the N.Y.U. Law Review. He clerked for a federal judge in Richmond, Virginia, then became a litigator at Jenner & Block in Chicago. He began his teaching career at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis in 1983 and joined the Hofstra faculty in 1992.

Professor Simon writes Simon’s New York Rules of Professional Conduct Annotated (now in its 16th edition), annually co-authors Regulation of Lawyers: Statutes and Standards (now in its 26th edition), and is the principal co-author of Lawyers and the Legal Profession (4th ed. 2009), a textbook for law students. He has also written more than 200 newsletter columns, as well as half a dozen law review articles, including his tenure piece, Fee Sharing Between Lawyers and Public Interest Groups, 98 Yale L.J. 1069 (1989).

Professor Simon is the Chair and Chief Reporter of the New York State Bar’s Committee on Standards of Professional Conduct (COSAC), which drafted proposals on which the courts based the New York Rules of Professional Conduct. He serves on the New York State Bar Association’s Committee on Professional Ethics and on the New York City Bar’s Committee on Professional and Judicial Ethics. He also is a practicing lawyer, concentrating on advising lawyers regarding professional conduct, and he serves as an expert witness in cases raising issues about the conduct of lawyers.

Robert J. Anello, Esq., a named partner at Morvillo Abramowitz Grand Iason & Anello PC, has litigated in the federal and state courts for more than thirty-five years. His practice focuses on white collar criminal defense, regulatory enforcement, complex civil litigation, and legal ethics. He is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. Mr. Anello is widely known for his dedication to organizations serving the legal community. He is the immediate past President of the Federal Bar Council. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees and as national membership chair of The Supreme Court Historical Society. He is the former chair of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York’s Audit Committee, and is a member of the Association’s Constitutional Convention, Task Force, and a former member of its Nominating Committee. Mr. Anello is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and the New York State Bar Foundation. He also was a member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York’s Ad Hoc Committee on Multi-disciplinary Practice and the Ad Hoc Committee Task Force on the Role of Lawyers in Corporate Governance.

Mr. Anello is a prolific legal writer and speaker. Among other things, he authors a regular column on white collar crime for the New York Law Journal and is co-editor of the two-volume treatise White Collar Crime: Business and Regulatory Offenses, Rev. Ed. (2014). He also is a regular contributor to his firm’s blog, The Insider, on Forbes.com<http://Forbes.com>.

Mr. Anello has demonstrated his commitment to legal ethics by serving as a member of the Departmental Disciplinary Committee of the Appellate Division, First Department. He also is the former chairman of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York’s Committee on Professional Responsibility and a past member of the Association’s Committee on Professional and Judicial Ethics. Mr. Anello is a member of the New York Council of Defense Lawyers’ Professional Responsibility Committee.

David Aronson, Esq., a named partner at Aronson Mayefsky & Sloan, LLP, has been named in a variety of peer review surveys as one of the top matrimonial attorneys in New York. He has been regularly selected for inclusion in “The Best Lawyers in America” and for more than twenty-five years he has enjoyed the highest peer rating for competence and ethics (‘AV’) by the well-respected Martindale-Hubbell directory of attorneys. In 2011 he was named the New York area’s “Lawyer of the Year” by Best Lawyers and for the past several years he has been named among the “Top 100 Lawyers” in New York (including lawyers in all specialties) by Super Lawyers.

Mr. Aronson is a member of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, the International Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, the American College of Family Trial Lawyers (which has only 100 members nationwide), the American Bar Association, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York (and sat as a member of that Association’s Council on Judicial Administration), and the New York State Bar Association. He is a former Adjunct Assistant Professor at Brooklyn Law School. He has served as Vice President and on the Board of Managers of the New York Chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers and on the Board of Managers of the New York State Bar Association, Family Law Section.

For more than a decade, David sat as a member of the New York State Office of Court Administration’s Matrimonial Practice Advisory Committee chaired by the Hon. Sharon S. Townsend and its predecessor, the New York State Courts Committee on Matrimonial Practice. As a committee member, David helped organize seminars for Judges and has regularly lectured to the sitting matrimonial judges and their staffs on such issues as valuation, equitable distribution, and maintenance. He is also a frequent lecturer at professional seminars and continuing legal education courses. Among the organizations that have asked him to appear are the New York State Office of Court Administration, the New York State Judicial Institute, the Women’s Bar Association, the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, the American Society of Appraisers, the Association of Divorce Financial Planners, the Appellate Division, First Department of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, the New York City Family Court Summit, the Practicing Law Institute and the New York City, County and State Bar Associations.

Steven C. Bennett, Esq. is a partner at Park Jensen Bennett LLP, in New York City. He previously served as a law clerk at the D.C. Circuit, an associate at Sullivan & Cromwell, an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and a partner at Jones Day. His practice focuses on domestic and international commercial litigation and arbitration. He currently teaches courses at Hofstra (conflicts of law) and New York Law School (ediscovery) and has previously taught at Rutgers, Brooklyn, Hebrew University, and Hunter College. He has presented, chaired and developed scores of CLE programs, for organizations including: ABA, ALI, Georgetown Law, NYSBA and PLI, as well as Celesq® AttorneysEd Center. He is the author of more than 200 law review and other professional publications, including three books (as principal author), and several others as editor or contributor. He is a founding member of the Sedona Conference working group on international ediscovery, and a board member for the Cardozo Data Law Initiative. 

Irene Savanis Fiorentinos, Esq., Of Counsel at Jones Day, is a frequent creator and presenter of training programs that focus on the ethical obligations of competence, particularly as they relate to electronic discovery and data preservation. Drawing upon her years of litigating a variety of matters ranging from highly complex antitrust and consumer class actions to single party cases, in both federal and state courts, she provides practical insights and an up-to- date understanding of best practices. The significant amount of time she spends advising clients on preservation and electronic discovery management approaches provide Ms. Fiorentinos with insight as to real corporate needs and challenges. She is also one of her firm’s electronic discovery initiative leaders, is involved in its litigation training programs, and has written and lectured on such issues at various organizations, among them Celesq® AttorneysEd Center. Ms. Fiorentinos has further served the legal community as her firm’s delegate to the Coalition of Women’s Initiatives in Law, a Chicago-wide organization of more than 40 law firms and corporate legal departments focused on expanding women lawyers’ leadership roles.

Jason D. Haislmaier, Esq. is a partner at Bryan Cave LLP. He also serves as an adjunct professor of law at the University of Colorado School of Law in Boulder, Colorado.  Mr. Haislmaier focuses his legal practice at the intersection of technology, data, and intellectual property issues. He has advised established multinationals and emerging start-up company clients in numerous unique commercial and corporate transactions involving the development, sourcing, commercialization, and sale of technology, data, and intellectual property assets. He has developed special areas of practice involving open source software licensing, data privacy and data security compliance, and technology sourcing transactions. Mr. Haislmaier has lectured in the U.S. and abroad on issues in these areas of the law as well as other technology, data, and intellectual property law topics. 

Andrea S. Kramer, Esq. is a partner in the international law firm of McDermott Will & Emery LLP where she heads its Financial Products, Trading and Derivatives Group. Ms. Kramer is a founding member of the firm’s Diversity Committee and co-chair of its Gender Diversity Subcommittee. She previously served on the firm’s Management and Compensation Committees. She has a sophisticated and unique legal practice that covers all aspects of financial transactions and derivatives, focusing on taxation, regulation, contract design, trading operations, and documentation. She addresses issues related to derivative products, hedging, energy trading, and insurance company investment operations. In all these areas, she works with clients to assure compliance with or resolve disputes concerning tax laws, governmental regulation, contract negotiation, trading policies, and risk management objectives.

Ms. Kramer consistently demonstrates her commitment to improving gender diversity and equality for women’s careers. She is co-author with her husband, Alton B. Harris, of the forthcoming book Breaking Through Bias: Communication Techniques for Women to Succeed at Work, with May 2016 as its scheduled publication date. She is a co-author of What You Need to Know About Negotiating Compensation, a 2013 guide published by the ABA Task Force on Gender Equality. She is the author of Developing Clout While Navigating Gender Bias, published in the National Association of Women Lawyers’ Women’s Law Journal and The Equality Equation – Here’s How Women Can Confront Prevailing Stereotypes and Rise to the Top, published in INSIGHT Magazine. She is also is the author of “Professional Advancement and Gender Stereotypes: The ‘Rules’ for Better Gender Communications”; “Self-Evaluations: Dos and Don’ts”; “Additional Things Women Can Do For Themselves”; and “What Professional Organizations Should Do to Advance Their Women Leaders,” all of which were published in the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois Newsletter, Fall 2011. She is co-author with Al Harris of “Taking Control: Women, Gender Stereotypes and Impression Management,” published in the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois Newsletter, Winter 2014.
Andie Kramer and Al Harris were featured as “Attorneys of the Month” in the Attorney at Law Magazine, Chicago Edition, September 2015, for their work in advancing the role of women in the legal profession and for their forthcoming book Breaking Through Bias.

Ms. Kramer was featured in the February 2012 Chicago Lawyer magazine as an “inspiring innovator” in the first in its series on “members of the legal community who think outside the box and inspire their colleagues”; as a “Remarkable Women” by the Chicago Tribune in August 2013 as a “Top Lawyer with a Corner Office” with a “Penchant for Platypuses and a Dream of Gender Equality”; and was quoted in The Wall Street Journal about gender bias and the need for women to refer business to other women (May 4, 2014).
She was named one of the 50 Most Influential Women Lawyers in America by the National Law Journal for her “demonstrated power to change the legal landscape, shape public affairs, launch industries, and do big things”; received the 2015 Inspiration Award from the Coalition of Women in Law Initiatives; the 2015 Top Women Lawyers in Leadership Award from the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois; the 2014 Gender Diversity Private Practice Lawyer of the Year, (Chambers USA Women in Law ), for her outstanding contributions to furthering the advancement of women in law; the 2015 POW Award honoring purposeful women (Womenetics); the 2013 Founder’s Award (Chicago Bar Association, Alliance for Women), given to women “who have significantly contributed to the advancement of women… and whose careers reflect the highest level of professional achievement, ethics, and excellence”; the 2011 Women With Vision Award (Women’s Bar Association of Illinois), given to women who have demonstrated visionary approaches in their professional endeavors and who have made contributions to the well-being and empowerment of women; and the 2012 National Public Service Award (ABA, Business Law Section), in recognition of her significant and sustained pro bono commitment and legal counsel to The Women’s Treatment Center, a nonprofit organization.

Ms. Kramer has spoken at close to 100 national diversity conferences, webcasts, trade association meetings, and professional service firms on the importance of assuring women equal access to career opportunities and leadership roles. She played a leading role in developing the Chicago Bar Association’s “Call to Action,” designed to increase employment and advancement opportunities for women lawyers, while also serving on the working group that developed the Call to Action compliance metrics.
Finding that mentorship opportunities for young professional women are limited in most professional organizations, she cofounded in 2005 and serves as board chair of the Women’s Leadership and Mentoring Alliance (WLMA), a 501(c)(3) corporation that brings professional women together to mentor and support leadership opportunities for women at all stages of their careers.

Anthony F. Lo Cicero, Esq., a partner in Amster, Rothstein & Ebenstein LLP and an engineer by training, has represented companies in patent and trademark litigation involving product areas as diverse as e-commerce platforms, angular rate sensors, camcorders and flat panel displays. He conducts due diligence of IP portfolios and provides strategic patent counseling to companies in a wide range of industries from recorded and published music to consumer electronics. Mr. Lo Cicero is immediate past President of the New York Intellectual Property Law Association.

In the public sector, Mr. Lo Cicero has been active in advocating responsible patent reform and he was actively involved in shaping the Trademark Anti-counterfeiting Act of 1984, and served on the board of the International Anti-counterfeiting Coalition during seminal efforts to strengthen the protection of federal and state laws, including Customs laws, to counteract counterfeiting. He is also effective at marshalling law enforcement agencies in the United States and other countries to disrupt and dismantle counterfeiting operations harming his clients’ rights. For example, counterfeit toner cartridges were adversely impacting the profitability of a major printer manufacturer; he coordinated Customs and law enforcement in the United States and abroad, obtained seizure orders and mitigated the problem. Similarly, he represents companies based in Europe, Asia and Latin America in protecting their trademark rights in the United States.

He also serves on the Board of Directors of Education for Music, a not-for-profit institution bringing music education and its attendant benefits to inner city children. He is a frequent speaker on issues of patent infringement, trademark dilution, anti-counterfeiting, arbitration, intellectual property damages and recovery, domain name disputes and Internet-related issues. He has been named a “Super Lawyer” for Intellectual Property and is included in IP Stars.

Sharon Levine Mirsky, Esq. has been involved in the creation, development and accreditation of CLE for more than 14 years at Celesq® AttorneysEd Center, a pioneer in online CLE. Formerly a senior partner at a large New York law firm where she was involved in corporate and securities litigation and class actions, Ms. Mirsky applies her vast real world experiences over 30 years when working with Celesq®’s presenters to develop CLE programs that offer experienced practitioners the latest developments and trends in ethical issues confronting attorneys, as well as in skills, litigation and substantive topics.

David Zetoony, Esq. is a partner at Bryan Cave LLP, where he leads its global data privacy and security practice. He has extensive experience advising clients on how to comply with state and federal privacy, security and advertising laws, representing clients before the Federal Trade Commission, and defending national class actions. Mr. Zetoony, who has substantial experience in both lecturing and organizing CLE programs, frequently speaks on areas involving data privacy, data security, as well as the ethical issues involved by in-house and outside counsel concerning the same, and he is chairing a national conference on data privacy and security litigation. In addition to his normal practice, he is a sought-after speaker concerning the unauthorized practice of law and how it impacts disadvantaged populations.