New Fagen Professorship Established

Lawyer and Professor Provides Major Gift to Brooklyn Law School

Les Fagen, a longtime member of Brooklyn Law School’s adjunct faculty and a veteran trial lawyer, has made a major gift to the Law School to establish an endowed professorship. 

The gift is a tribute to the strength of the Brooklyn Law faculty and to the school’s distinctive mission of educational access for students from all backgrounds.  And it honors Les’s father, Herman Fagen, who benefited from that mission as a first-generation college and law student graduating in the Brooklyn Law School Class of 1942. 

“Brooklyn Law School is an important and iconic institution in the City of New York and that is part of why I decided to make this grant,” Les said. “In its history and to this day, the Law School has enjoyed an extraordinary faculty and admitted wonderful students who later became impressive lawyers.”  

Dedicated to education, Les said he was inspired by the Law School’s history of making legal education accessible to children of immigrants. “It means that people who have recently come to this country can see their children join the professional world as lawyers and perhaps as judges, legislators, and other elective officials,” Les said.  

He also admires the Law School’s commitment to a part-time program that offers night classes, which many peer schools eliminated long ago. “It permits those who cannot afford to attend daytime classes a chance to earn a J.D. while working for the money they need to live,” Les said.  

“Lastly, it is my strong impression,” Les said, “that for several decades Brooklyn Law School, unlike many other law schools, admitted a large number of women to study law and gave them a chance to improve our profession.” 

President and Joseph Crea Dean David D. Meyer expressed appreciation. "We could not be more grateful to Les Fagen for this extremely generous and meaningful gift,” Meyer said. “It recognizes that the foundation of excellence for any law school is its faculty, and that attracting and retaining gifted scholars and teachers is vital to our future and to our students’ success. That the gift comes from a longtime member of our faculty, and celebrates Brooklyn Law's distinctive mission of educational access, makes it all the more special.” 

A Family Tradition 

Educational access is not an abstract concept for the Fagen family. Born to immigrants, Herman grew up during the Depression, graduated City College, and then followed his two older brothers, Bernard Fagen ’30 and Israel Fagen ’31, to Brooklyn Law School, which all three attended at night. Herman worked in a series of tough day jobs, including as a truck driver and an ironworker. 
“Dad was always grateful to the Law School. Indeed, he wore his Brooklyn Law School ring until the end of his life,” Les recalled. Over the years, Herman became an important executive at the New York City Transit Authority and an expert in tort law who taught as an adjunct professor at Brooklyn College.  

Les counts himself among his dad’s students.  

Les is a graduate of Yale College and Columbia Law School. Thereafter, he started a career at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, where he practiced law for more than 40 years. He honed his skills as a litigator among mentors such as Judge Simon Rifkind, Arthur Liman, Edward Costikyan, Judge A. Leon Higginbotham, and Ted Sorensen. He was elected chair of the firm's litigation department and a member of the firm’s management committee. He also became a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. 
 
“Shortly after I arrived at Paul Weiss in 1976, I was asked to try a very, very small case in Supreme Court, New York County, for Joe Papp, the famous producer and director and the founder of the New York Shakespeare Festival,” Les recalled. “He had bought a house in the country which was damaged, and he wanted to sue the sellers. I had little or no experience in trying cases at that point, a fact which Papp quickly realized.” 

Les told Herman about being assigned to handle the Papp case solo and said he was nervous.  As it turned out, however, Les received some unexpected assistance. “Just before the judge appeared in the courtroom, I turned around and, to my surprise, I saw my dad seated in the back of the room,” Les said. “He decided, without first telling me, that he was going to help his son try his first case. Throughout the day, he slipped me notes and conferred with me during breaks on how to talk to the jury, how to ask questions, how to object, and how to win.” 

Before long, Papp noticed his trial had a subplot.  

 “During a break, he asked me who was that older guy in the back of the courtroom,” Les said. Les told his client that the guy was his father, also a lawyer, and meekly added that his dad was not demanding time charges.  

“Joe responded, ‘I wish I had him trying the case and not you!’”  

 “Not comforting words,” Les recalled, “although in the end, we did well in that case—thanks to great advice from a great lawyer and a graduate of this great Law School.” 

Of all his mentors, the most important one was Herman. He died at 93 on Jan. 28, 2010.  

“My dad had a knowledge of lawyering that was extraordinary,” said Les. “It is obvious that it was Herman Fagen that brought me, and my sister Susan Britt, also a trial lawyer, well into the profession of the law.”  

When deciding how to honor Brooklyn Law School, Les chose the endowment of a professorship to honor the importance of a strong faculty. “You can give many kinds of gifts to educational institutions which can often lead to a plaque with your name on the wall. However, an endowed professorship creates not only a valuable gift, but a living gift as well,” he said.  

Over the years, Les accompanied his dad to several memorable Law School events. In 2005, they celebrated the Herman Fagen Scholarship Fund, created by Les, where his father met with the Fagen scholarship recipient and others.  

At his father’s 50th reunion at Tavern on the Green, Les met a significant number of his dad’s female classmates who had graduated in the 1940s, a testament to Brooklyn Law School’s longtime history of inclusiveness. He also ran into federal Judge Jack B. Weinstein of the United States District Court of the Eastern District of New York for whom Les had clerked. Judge Weinstein was an adjunct professor at the Law School and that year’s commencement speaker.  

The Fagens joined the commencement at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall. Herman, dressed in a robe, streamed in as part of the procession and joined the dignitaries on stage. Les recounted: “When Judge Weinstein took the podium to speak to approximately a thousand people, he said, ‘This feels like family. My former law clerk Les Fagen is here in the audience and his dad, Herman Fagen, is behind me. These are two great lawyers.’”  Herman always remembered what Judge Weinstein said.  

Les teaches a Brooklyn Law course titled “Litigating an Intellectual Property Case” and is also a longtime member of the adjunct faculty and a Board of Visitors member at Columbia Law School. In addition, he is a member of the advisory board of the Students & Alumni of Yale and on the faculty of the Yale Alumni College. 

After leaving Paul Weiss, Les has served as a board member, advisor, and consultant for companies and foundations and as a fiduciary with respect to trusts and estates. He is a director of the Brennan Center for Justice, which helps to defend democracy, reform justice, and protect the Constitution and a trustee of the Kohlberg Foundation, which, among other things, focuses on health and medical research, education, the environment, and the cause of democracy.