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Who

A crusading attorney who represents the city's most vulnerable, Banks is the top legal mind at the Legal Aid Society of New York.

Backstory

The son of a a surgeon who later bacame the dean of Tufts Medical School, as a college student Banks flirted with the idea of becoming a rabbi. Instead he decided to pursue social change with a law career, and after graduating from NYU Law School, he joined the Legal Aid Society. His first big case was a lawsuit he filed against Mayor Koch and the city's Emergency Assistance Unit on behalf of Yvonne McCain, a battered woman with four children who had attempted to leave her abusive husband but was denied shelter. Banks's 1986 victory changed the city's official policy and afforded homeless families the right to seek shelter in city facilities. Two decades later, he oversees some 800 full-time attorneys on staff and more than 200,000 cases a year.

Of note

Years of neglect and financial mismanagement left the Legal Aid Society in debt to the tune of $40 million by 2004. (Deep budget cuts under Mayor Rudy Giuliani had exacerbated the problem.) After the ousting of the organization's president Daniel Greenberg, finances were restructured and a handful of high-powered NYC law firms chipped in more than $9 million to get the group back on its feet. Nowadays, Ted Levine of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz (who serves as president) and Alan Levine of Cooley Godward Kronish (who serves as chairman of the board) keep tabs on matters.

Campaign trail

Banks ran for City Council as a Democrat in Brooklyn's 39th District in 2001; he finished second out of six candidates. Despite the fact that he'd sued Mayor Koch in the past, Koch actually endorsed Banks' run. "He always acted responsibly, even when he sued me," Koch said at the time.

Personal

In the early '80s, Banks met future wife Jean Schneider on a picket line. Steve and Jean—who is now a housing court judge—have two teenage children and live in a three-story townhouse in the Windsor Terrace neighborhood of Brooklyn.