Skadden’s 100 Year Old Lawyer

For Bentley Kassal’s 100th birthday, his wife ordered a custom-made birthday cake with the Skadden lawyer’s mug shot imposed over his infant body, as it first appeared on this earth a century ago.

On Saturday, the cake — with the words “You’ve come a long way baby!” — was delivered to the Harvard Club in Manhattan, where roughly 75 close friends and legal colleagues of Kassal gathered and toasted the former New York state judge on his life and career.

Kassal, who officially turns 100 Tuesday, is the oldest lawyer at Skadden.

[caption id="attachment_43546" align="aligncenter” width="412"][Image “Bentley Kassal cake” (src=https://bol.bna.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Bentley-Kassal-cake-e1488225930170.jpg)]Photo courtesy of Barbara Kassal.[/caption]

“I’m here every morning by 9:30 a.m. and work a full day to 4:30 p.m.,” said Kassal , during an interview at his 4 Times Square office on Monday. “I am enjoying every bit of it because every day I get a new challenge and I like being challenged — whether it be in the law or whether it be on the sports field.”

Kassal, who joined Skadden in 1998 as counsel to the firm’s litigation department after 35 years as a New York judge, said that he has no plans of dialing it back. His job includes offering advice to litigators on how to craft their legal arguments, as well as helping to advance the firm’s pro bono efforts.

He said that he tries to “punch up” his colleagues legal briefs.

“I essentially highlight portions, which I think should be most impressive and long-lasting in the memory of the judge or jury, and also, of course, I am correcting grammar.”

Unlike his Skadden colleagues, Kassal has never been a partner at the firm, although he plays what his colleagues view to be a critical role in bringing his legal know-how to bear in complex commercial litigation.

“He’s corrected all my legal writing,” said John L. Gardiner, co-chair of the firm’s international arbitration and litigation group. “He’s made invaluable contributions to my appellate arguments and he continues to do so.”

Gardiner, who attended Kassal’s birthday bash on Saturday, joked that he enjoyed roasting Kassal: “Apart from Kim Kardashian, he is the most Googled name on the Internet, and that’s because he keeps Googling himself,” he said.

Gardiner is a neighbor to Kassal’s office, where his walls are decked with picture frames and many of his photographs. Outside of his time as a lawyer, Kassal traveled the world — he said to nearly 150 countries — taking photos of war and oppression, with a focus on children, and donated his pictures to organizations such as Save the Children, World Monuments Fund, Human Rights Watch, the Asia Society and UNICEF.

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“My photographic career started when I was six years of age,” explained Kassal. “I recall distinctly where my family had a chauffeur who was in a minor automobile accident involving property damage... and I took photos and wrote a brief summary of how the accident occurred, which probably was an indication that that type of work would be my future, as it turned out.”

During an interview Monday, Kassal walked around his office and pointing out various works. Some of his most prominent photos included pictures of ground zero following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center Towers, and a photograph of a girl in Beirut that became the poster child of Save the Children, the children’s rights organization, for years.

“I paid my own expenses, which is perfectly fine with me,” said Kassal, of his travel and work to take the photos.

Outside of his photographs, his walls showed him meeting with President Barack Obama and Jack Kennedy, displayed rugby balls [he played on the Harvard Rugby football team], a Skadden mug, a portrait of him drawn by Tony Bennett, a letter of thanks from U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan on his “good wishes” on her 2010 appointment, press clippings, and photos of him and his wife.

Asked what Kassal does to keep his mind and body active, he said: “Mentally, I do my legal work and read the newspapers very carefully... and physically I do a great deal of walking, which is important to me because I have to recover my balance — some of my football concussions have knocked my balance awry.”

The keys to his long-lasting health, he said, have been marrying a partner who enjoys travel; loving what he does; and keeping his body active with physical activities, like ski trips to Stowe, Vermont.

Kassal’s wife of 31 years, Barbara, is 75.

“I met Barbara because I was a long time assemblyman in the West Side [of Manhattan], and in the first reformed democratic club, and her brother-in-law was an important captain,” he remembered. “He would frequently bring Barbara to our public meetings at the club and I met her in the normal course of social activities.” [Barbara was 19.]

The two didn’t marry until much later, however, when Kassal was 69 and Barbara was 44.

His next project, Kassal said, will be speaking with students of all ages who hope to become a lawyer about how to balance their prospective legal careers with other ambitions.

“These students should know that they aren’t locked into one career in the law,” said Kassal. “There are supplementary careers, like mine, that I’ve enjoyed for the last 35 years.”

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