Lecturer Bios
Ronald C. Minkoff, Esq.
Ronald C. Minkoff is a partner in the Litigation Group and Head of the Professional Responsibility Group. Mr. Minkoff is also 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, disciplinary 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.
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 is a member of the Media Law Resource Center (MLRC) ethics committee and has written extensively for the New York Professional Responsibility Report, The Professional Lawyer, The New York Law Journal, and other publications. Mr. Minkoff is an Adjunct Professor of Professional Responsibility at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. He has also served as an Adjunct Professor at 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 in partnership disputes. And he represents an internationally known petrochemist in an oil and gas venture dispute. Mr. Minkoff was recently appointed to the Advisory Committee of the Commercial Division of the Supreme Court, New York County and 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.
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.
Representative cases: Grynberg v. BP Explorations Operating Co. Ltd. 92 A.D.3d 547 938 N.Y.S.2d 439 (2012); 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); Goetz v. Volpe and R & L Leasing, LLC, 11 Misc.3d 632, 812 N.Y.S.2d 294 (2006).
Robin G. Steinberg, Esq.
Robin G. Steinberg, Executive Director, The Bronx Defenders
A public defender for 20 years, Ms. Steinberg began her career at The Legal Aid Society of Nassau County and New York City. After leaving The Legal Aid Society, Robin joined the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem where she became the Deputy Director. Robin left Harlem in 1997 when she founded The Bronx Defenders. Ms. Steinberg is an active member of the local and national indigent defense communities. She was a participant in the Executive Session on Public Defense, conducted by the Bureau of Justice Assistance and Harvard University from 1999 through 2001. She serves on the Board of Directors of the New York State Defender Association and New York City Alternative to Incarceration and she is an advisory board member of the National Defender Leadership Project. Ms. Steinberg advocates locally and nationally for holistic representation and the community defender movement. She is a 2002 Wasserstein Fellow of Harvard Law School, she received the Kutak-Dodds Prize for the year 2000 for her "exceptional vision, devotion and service in the quest for equal justice", as well as the 2001 New York State Bar Association's Criminal Justice Section Award for "outstanding contributions to the delivery of defense services".
Ann Matthews, Esq.
Ann Mathews graduated magna cum laude from New York University School of Law in 2002. While at NYU, she participated in the New York Capital Defender Clinic and was an Articles Editor for the NYU Law Review. Before joining The Bronx Defenders, Ann clerked for the Honorable M. Blane Michael of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and spent several years as a Litigation Associate at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP in New York. Ann received her undergraduate degree from Columbia, where she majored in Middle Eastern Languages and Culture. She also received a graduate degree in journalism from Columbia. Before attending law school, Ann worked, among other places, as a Legislative Assistant on Capitol Hill and spent a year in Lusaka, Zambia working on a public health project.
Jenay Nurse, Esq.
Jenay came to The Bronx Defenders after working as an Associate at Debevoise and Plimpton LLP. She received her J.D. from Northwestern University School of law where she graduated cum laude and was an Associate Editor of the Journal of International Human Rights and the Secretary for the Black Law Students Association. At Northwestern, Jenay was in the Bluhm Legal Clinic and she externed for the Honorable Matthew F. Kennelly from the United States District Court in the Northern District of Illinois. Jenay worked as a Criminal Defense Intern for the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem following her first year of law school. She also holds a B.B.A. in International Business and Consulting from Emory University.
