Arnold M. Weiss, Attorney

Arnold Weiss' career is characterized by his full and rich participation in wide variety of areas that include competitive sports, academic achievement, politics, public service and the practice of law.

Education

Arnie was a quarterback on his Tilden High School football team and was elected to Tilden's Sports Hall of Fame.  He later played forward for his Brooklyn College basketball team.

Arnie enjoyed high academic achievement at Brooklyn College while at the same time, serving as an active member of its basketball team, its debate team, and its student government, and also as Chancellor of the Epsilon Phi Alpha Fraternity, and as Co-Chairman of the organization that paved the way for the College's first Student Union Building.

Arnie attended Harvard Law School on a partial scholarship.  He was elected to its prestigious Board of Student Advisors by virtue of finishing in the top 5% of his first year class.  He was also the Gallery Editor of the Harvard Law School Bulletin.

After graduating from Harvard Law School, Arnie served in the National Guard/US Army.

Politics

Arnie was an organizer, and then State Chairman, and National Vice Chairman, of the New Democratic Coalition, the activist reform wing of the State and National Democratic Party.  On a national level, as a member of the Commission created to reform the National Democratic Party, he played a significant role in restructuring the Party to make it dramatically more responsive to grass roots and minority voters.  Later, as Democratic State Committeeman in New York, he was the prime architect of a similar restructuring of the State Democratic Party, which opened the process of selecting delegates to Democratic Party Presidential Conventions.  Arnie served as Campaign Manager in successful campaigns for a number of candidates, including Bella Abzug and Ed Koch.

Law Career

Arnie began his law career as an Assistant Counsel to the New York State Commission of Investigation.  Its mission was to ferret out organized crime and official corruption.  Arnie was involved in the stunning raid of the secret meeting of nearly 100 of the nation's leading Mafia dons in Appalachia, New York (spoofed in the recent movie Analyze This).  He was instrumental in securing the lengthy incarceration of many of the dons who refused to reveal the purpose and details of the notorious meeting. 

Arnie also played key roles in corruption investigations in Buffalo and Albany, New York, and in widely covered public hearings revealing the  misconduct uncovered during those investigations.  In New York City, he led the Commission's investigation into police and other public officials' notorious shakedowns of Greenwich Village Coffee Houses.

Since his four years with the Commission of Investigation, Arnie has been an active lawyer, engaged primarily in commercial litigation and commercial transactions.  He has litigated, tried and/or resolved a broad range of cases in federal and state courts, before arbitration panels, and in mediation.  Many of Arnie's cases produced extraordinary results.  For example, in one such case, an attorney who committed serious ethical misconduct against his two clients was compelled to disgorge his right to approximately $60,000,000 in royalties fees that were deemed properly due to his clients.  In an action brought against the same clients' licensee, alleging a broad range of misconduct in the calculation of royalties due to the clients, Arnie and his team were able to secure a $116,000,000 settlement for their clients interests in the licensed products.

On another occasion, Arnie was referred three cases for which, despite intensive efforts over a two-year period, his client was unable to collect any part of the aggregate sum of $450,000 due.  Arnie's characteristically aggressive approach resulted in the quick recovery of more than 98% of the sum due -- this, despite the fact that one of the three defendants had already ceased doing business.  In fact, the defendant that owed 75% of the money due agreed to pay the full amount within 24 hours after Arnie's complaint was served.

More recently, Arnie was instrumental in the legal proceeding that resulted in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art's backing down on its plans to remove the world-famous fountains, to remove large portions of green space, and to engage in a massive expansion that would have overwhelmed the neighboring historic district.

Public Service

In addition to his extensive volunteer political career,  his public service includes years of intensive civil rights activity, including the registering and organizing African Americans in Greenville, Mississippi, during the Freedom Summer, his  many years of service as a Director of the Brooklyn College Alumni Association, and his current service as counsel to NYCMedics, a volunteer group of paramedics, EMTs and physicians engaged in  medical relief missions, including the treatment and sheltering of victims of the recent Pakistan earthquake.