Lester Brickman

Who is Lester Brickman?

Lester Brickman is a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law of the Yeshiva University and a legal scholar.

Brickman is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. He holds a juris doctor degree from the University of Florida and an LLM degree from Yale Law School.

He teaches contracts, legal ethics and Land Use and Zoning at the Cardozo School of Law and has written on asbestos litigation and tort reform. Brickman has espoused the Early Offer model of allocating contingent fees as a way of reforming the American tort law system.

One noted area in which his reform efforts have already been successful is that of nonrefundable retainers. After he wrote several law review articles and an amicus curiae brief deriding them as illegal, the New York Court of Appeals struck down their use by lawyers in New York State. This holding has been adopted in other states.

Brickman employs a very rigorous socratic method during class meetings, combining a fast-paced banter with students leavened along the way by his idiosyncratic phrases and original anecdotes, frequently using his catchphrases "make a legal noise" or "difference in degree or difference in kind".