SYRACUSE — Bond, Schoeneck & King PLLC — Central New York’s largest law firm, ranked by number of area attorneys — announced that its members (partners) have elected Kevin M. Bernstein to chair the firm’s management committee, effective Jan. 1. Bernstein, elected to a four-year term, will succeed Richard D. Hole, who served two […]
SYRACUSE — Bond, Schoeneck & King PLLC — Central New York’s largest law firm, ranked by number of area attorneys — announced that its members (partners) have elected Kevin M. Bernstein to chair the firm’s management committee, effective Jan. 1.
Bernstein, elected to a four-year term, will succeed Richard D. Hole, who served two four-year terms as Bond’s management committee chair. Hole will continue his practice counseling clients on business and corporate law, employee benefits, and health law.
Bernstein has been at Bond, Schoeneck & King since 1990 and has been practicing law since 1985. He is a member of the Syracuse–based firm’s environmental and energy practice group. His practice focuses on obtaining permits and approvals for private and municipal clients for gas storage, mining, power generation, landfill, electrical and gas transmission, and wind-energy projects, according to his bio on the Bond website.
In a Nov. 2 interview in the firm’s 18th floor conference room, overlooking the Syracuse skyline, Bernstein tells CNYBJ he sought the chair position, because “I want to lead this firm into the future.” Bernstein cites his “excellent leadership skills” — honed by serving on the firm’s compensation and recruiting committees and his work mentoring younger Bond attorneys — as evidence he’s ready for the challenge.
“The members have chosen well in tapping Kevin Bernstein to succeed me as chair of the firm,” Hole said of his successor in a Bond news release. “With a deep knowledge of Bond and a solid grasp of the changes affecting our profession, Kevin will provide outstanding leadership to guide our firm in the years ahead.”
Plans
“I see a bright future for the firm,” says Bernstein, noting its “sound fundamentals, excellent people, and practice areas.”
Bond, Schoeneck & King is in the process of combining with the Buffalo law firm of Jaeckle Fleischmann & Mugel, LLP in a deal that also takes effect at the start of 2016. The combination, Bond’s biggest in its history, will grow Bond’s Buffalo office to 51 attorneys from its current 15. Buffalo will become the firm’s second largest office, after its Syracuse headquarters
Bernstein, who has known of his impending chair position since July, says he started working with Hole then, including helping complete the Jaeckle deal and starting on the integration work with that firm.
“Buffalo is booming. I’m very optimistic about Buffalo,” says Bernstein.
He adds that Bond, Schoeneck & King is also seeing strong growth in the Rochester area with its real-estate practice and in Syracuse with its involvement in the city’s downtown revitalization efforts.
Bond has also grown its health-care practice in Albany and its higher-education practice in New York City. Bernstein says the firm is now seeking to grow its Garden City (Long Island) office further to become more of a full-service practice.
The law firm will continue to look at combination possibilities and add lawyers where opportunity arises. But it has to be “smart growth, not for the sake of just getting bigger,” Bernstein says. “We always keep our eyes open.”
Bernstein says his first chore as the chair-elect includes identifying opportunities for the firm in 2016 with its management committee.
He is also transitioning about half of his environmental and energy practice work to other attorneys in the group. The addition of the Jaeckle firm will aid that effort as that firm brings Bond two environmental and energy attorneys to add to the eight or nine environmental and energy lawyers it has in the Syracuse office.
Bernstein says he and the management committee will embark in 2017 on developing a new five-year strategic plan for Bond, Schoeneck & King, taking effect in 2018.
Bernstein received his bachelor’s degree from SUNY Brockport and his law degree from the Vermont Law School. He serves on the board of directors of the Baldwinsville Community Scholarship Foundation and the Northwest Family YMCA. He served on the Baldwinsville Central School District Board of Education from 2000-2009.
Bond, Schoeneck & King, with 230 lawyers in total (soon to be 265), has nine offices in New York state and locations in Naples, Florida and Overland Park, Kansas.