By Noah Powelson<\/p>\n
Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s pick to lead the Law Department faced the City Council on Wednesday, and received a mix of praise and concern as the legacy of the previous administration\u2019s corporation counsel pick remained fresh in councilmembers’ minds.<\/p>\n
At a City Council Committee on Rules, Privileges, Elections, Standards & Ethics hearing, Steven Banks faced the City Council, which is required to approve his nomination after he was selected last month by Mamdani to serve as corporation counsel, the city\u2019s top attorney. The nominee answered questions about a variety of issues, but much of the meeting was defined by Banks\u2019 attempts to assuage the Council\u2019s fear that he would be a repeat of former Mayor Eric Adams\u2019 one-time pick for the position, Randy Mastro. <\/p>\n
As corporation counsel, Banks would be charged with representing both sides of City Hall, a task the Council claimed Mastro wouldn\u2019t be able to fulfill because of his perceived allegiance to the former mayor. <\/p>\n
Banks was asked if the Law Department would maintain confidentiality in discussions with council members, and about how he would handle legal clashes between the mayor and City Council. In response, Banks repeatedly affirmed he would act as an attorney working for the best interests of all parties. <\/p>\n
\u201cI know there is a whole history here,\u201d Banks said. \u201cI understand the context is a very contentious relationship with the last administration. I am not in that administration.\u201d<\/p>\n
Banks, who spent 20 years working as a public defender before entering into government, repeatedly promised he would be a lawyer for the city, not just the mayor\u2019s interest. As councilmembers brought up concerns about the Adams administration\u2019s Law Department, which they said was uncommunicative and unresponsive to their needs, Banks said he would make it his goal to be available to all lawmakers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted this position because it\u2019s the lawyer for the City of New York, not the lawyer for the mayor, not the lawyer for the Council \u2013 the lawyer for the city,\u201d Banks said. \u201cI look forward to representing the whole city, and I will look forward to do what I have always done when I have had clients that have different points of view: try to reconcile those points of view and ultimately represent the point of view that is judged the proper point of view under the law.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy fidelity is to the rule of law and making sure the best interests of the City of New York are served,\u201d Banks added.<\/p>\n
City Council Speaker Julie Menin asked Banks if his Law Department would be proactive in their advice and opinion on Council bills.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe recently had a situation\u2026where the Law Department did not provide all the legal opinions to the bill that the Council ended up passing in December,\u201d Menin said. \u201cWe want to seek your commitment that moving forward, that does not happen again because it put the Council in a very difficult situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be clear, we cannot have that happen again and we need your commitment that it will not happen again,\u201d Menin told Banks.<\/p>\n
Banks promised it wouldn\u2019t. <\/p>\n
The legacy of Mastro, whom Adams nominated as corporation counsel in 2024, was clearly fresh on the Council\u2019s minds. Mastro, who previously served as deputy mayor and chief of staff to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, had an intense confirmation hearing in August 2024. <\/p>\n
Mastro and councilmembers shouted over each other during the hearing, and he pulled his own nomination a few weeks later. <\/p>\n
Banks\u2019 confirmation hearing was nowhere as dramatic, but Mastro\u2019s name was brought up several times as councilmembers probed the nominee about his allegiances.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, councilmembers in attendance seemed to largely approve of Banks\u2019 work. <\/p>\n
Banks previously served as the attorney-in-chief at the Legal Aid Society and as the commissioner of the Department of Social Services under former Mayor Bill de Blasio. During his eight-year service under de Blasio, Banks helped implement the city\u2019s Right to Counsel program and reformed the city\u2019s shelter system.<\/p>\n
Should he be confirmed by the City Council, Banks will become the first Legal Aid attorney to serve as the city\u2019s top lawyer. <\/p>\n
City Councilmembers Gale Brewer, Tiffany Cab\u00e1n, Shekar Krishnan, Crystal Hudson and Lincoln Restler all took time during their comments to praise Banks\u2019 legacy before issuing their questions.<\/p>\n
Banks also answered a variety of questions on the Law Department\u2019s role in issues around federal immigration crackdowns in the city, the multiple crises on Rikers Island, and the ability of the city to shelter homeless New Yorkers. <\/p>\n
Staffing for the Law Department was a primary concern for Banks, he said during the hearing. The agency has lost over 200 attorneys since the COVID-19 pandemic. How Banks will address those staffing issues after Mamdani announced the city has a $12 billion budget deficit, is unclear.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe mayor I think has been very clear publicly about the damage of hollowing out the Law Department, and I\u2019m certainly going to work with the administration about the best path forward to address that problem,\u201d Banks said. \u201cTwo things can be true at once, which is we need more people and we have challenging finances.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Noah Powelson Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s pick to lead the Law Department faced the City Council on Wednesday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":{"0":"post-124035","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-queens","12":"tag-queens-headlines","13":"tag-queens-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}