Ronald C. Minkoff

Ronald C. Minkoff is a partner in the Litigation Group and chair of the Professional Responsibility Group.

Mr. Minkoff is one of New York State’s leading practitioners in the field of attorney ethics and professional responsibility, representing attorneys in a wide variety of matters including law firm partnership agreements, attorney departures and lateral hires, attorney discipline cases, legal fee disputes and legal malpractice and professional liability cases on behalf of both plaintiffs and defendants. He also provides ethics opinions and advice to a wide variety of law firm clients. He often serves as an expert witness in legal malpractice lawsuits and attorneys’ fees disputes.

Mr. Minkoff is a member of several Bar Ethics Committees, including the Committee on Standards of Attorney Conduct (COSAC) and the Committee on Attorney Professionalism of the New York State Bar Association. He is also the treasurer of the New York County Lawyers’ Association, co-chair of NYCLA’s Task Force on Professionalism, a member of the American Bar Association Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services, and a past president of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers. He has written extensively for the New York Professional Responsibility Report, The Professional Lawyer, The New York Law Journal, and other publications. Mr. Minkoff is the former co-managing editor of the New York Legal Ethics Reporter and author of Lexology’s New York Professional Negligence Navigator. He has taught Professional Responsibility at Columbia University School of Law, New York University School of Law, Fordham Law School, Brooklyn Law School and Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. He is a frequent lecturer on the law of lawyering.

In addition, Mr. Minkoff represents businesses and individual professionals and executives in a wide variety of commercial litigation, including business break-ups, securities lawsuits, and domestic and international trade disputes. He has over 30 years of experience representing law firm partners and law firms in partnership formations, partnership disputes, lateral transitions and law-firm dissolutions. And he represents an internationally known petrochemist in an oil and gas venture dispute. Mr. Minkoff was a member of Chief Judge Lippman’s Task Force on Commercial Litigation in the 21st Century. He is on the Executive Committee of the New York State Bar Association.

Mr. Minkoff was named Best Lawyers in America 2019 “Lawyer of the Year” in Legal Malpractice Law - Defendants and 2011 and 2024 “New York Ethics and Professional Responsibility Lawyer of the Year.” He is also recognized by Best Lawyers for his work in Commercial Litigation, Ethics and Professional Responsibility, and Legal Malpractice Law - Defendants. He has been named a New York-area “Super Lawyer” for Professional Liability: Defense Work and Business Litigation by Super Lawyers magazine for eighteen consecutive years.

Mr. Minkoff is a graduate of Columbia Law School (JD, 1980). He was an attorney at the Nassau County Legal Aid Society (1980-83), and was associated with Obermaier Morvillo & Abramowitz, P.C. (1983-85) and Owen & Fennell (1985-87). Mr. Minkoff was a member of Fennell & Minkoff (1987-94) and Beldock Levine & Hoffman (1994-2001) before joining Frankfurt Kurnit. He is admitted to practice in New York and local federal courts.

Representative cases: Fragin v. First Funds Holdings LLC and Moses & Singer LLP, 2016 WL 4256984 (Sup. Ct. N.Y. Co. 2016); Grynberg v. BP Exploration Operating Co. Ltd. N.Y.S.3d 125 (1st Dep’t (2015); Lakah v. UBS AG, 996 F.Supp.2d 250 (S.D.N.Y. 2014); QBE Ins. Co. v. Maloof, Lebowitz, Connahan & Oleske, 2105 WL 7188350 (Sup. Ct. N.Y. Co. 2015); In re Lerner, 112 A.D.3d 144 (1st Dep’t 2013); Frauzblau v. Cassin and Cassin LLP Index: 105949/10 Supreme Court New York County (2010); Carl v. Cohen and Greenberg Traurig, LLP 23 Misc.3d 1110(A) 886 N.Y.S.2d 66 (2009); Conopco, Inc. v. Wein, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 46945 (S.D.N.Y. 2007); Trepel v. Dippold, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 78050 (S.D.N.Y. 2006).