Many attorneys start with low-profile cases at small firms until they work their way up to high-profile lawsuits at big-name law firms.

Not so for litigator Steven Weber, who started big.

His first job was as an attorney in the New York City Law Department. From the start, he worked on cases with a broad impact.

“The reason I worked there is you get experience right off the bat. From the beginning, I was in court doing federal case work, doing state case work, working on class action lawsuit defense. A lot of the cases are high profile because they are affecting literally millions of people in the city of New York,” Weber said . “After a couple months, my superiors realized I can handle that work, and eventually I got more and more complex, high-profile work.”

Weber was on a team that defended the city and then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg when he was sued while seeking a third term in office, which required him to change city regulations that limited him to two terms.

The legal team won the case in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York and then won the appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

The term limits were changed, and Bloomberg won a third four-year term in November 2009.

“That experience that I got there at such a young lawyer age really paved the way for me being able to analyze complex concepts and understanding the ramifications,” said Weber, now 37. “When you are settling a class action in the city of New York, you are affecting millions of people. … You have to look at what are the repercussions of doing this.”

Weber's work on high-profile cases that have garnered media attention didn't stop once he left New York.

At Berger Singerman in South Florida, Weber deposed convicted Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein and attended and assisted with taking Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff's deposition.

Rothstein is the disbarred former chairman of the defunct Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler, who engineered a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme. He now is serving a 50-year sentence.

Madoff is serving a 150-year sentence for running a $65 billion Ponzi scheme.

Weber's work on the Rothstein case focused on representing court-appointed receiver Herbert Stettin, a former judge, to take back the money that was fraudulently transferred from investors.

Stettin “tried to bring back as much money as possible to satisfy the creditors and try to reimburse people for what they lost. To do that, he employed Berger Singerman, and I was a lawyer at Berger Singerman and handled several of the adversary proceedings designed to sue the people who allegedly received money improperly,” Weber said. “Let's just say, for example, Rothstein was allegedly buying boats. … The trustee might say, 'You knew this was fraudulent money that he was using to buy these boats … or you should have known there was a Ponzi scheme.' They would try to claw back the money that was given to this person.”

Most, if not all, of the cases settled, ”which is a good result,” Weber said. “Money was retrieved.”

 

MORE FLEXIBILITY

After his public service work in New York, Weber worked for Hoguet Newman Regal & Kenney in New York before moving to South Florida with his wife, Virginia Weber, who also is an attorney.

He worked for Berger Singerman until 2016 when he left to launch Weber Law in Miami with a focus on real estate and business disputes, contract analysis, and crisis response and management.

“It was really a no-brainer given that I had been running cases by myself with limited supervision at my prior firms. Now I have just greater flexibility and am able to provide even better services for my clients. I think I have a good reputation. I would say clients found me,” Weber said. “Once you find a good sole practitioner who can provide good legal services without a lot of the overhead and a lot of at lower rates, people want that. If you can get a big law firm lawyer in a smaller, more flexible package, most people are going to take it.”

Having his own law firm has allowed him more time with his children, 2-year-old Hudson and 4-year-old Mia, and his work for the nonprofit Miami Children's Museum on MacArthur Causeway. Weber is on the museum's board of directors and executive committee.

“I am really involved with the Children's Museum, which is a fantastic organization,” Weber said, “It doesn't get enough credit for how much work it does for underprivileged children.”

 

STEVEN WEBER

Born: Huntington, New York; 1981

Children: Hudson and Mia

Spouse: Virginia Weber

Education: Emory University School of Law, J.D., 2006; The George Washington University, B.S.; 2003

Experience: Weber Law, 2016-present; Berger Singerman in South Florida, 2012-2016; Hoguet Newman Regal & Kenney in New York, 2010-2012; New York City Law Department, 2006-2010