26 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • JUNE 2021
RIVKIN RADLER MANAGING PARTNER EVAN KRINICK LAW LEADER
BY CLAUDE SOLNIK
During Evan Krinick’s eight-and-a-half
year tenure as managing partner at
Uniondale-based Rivkin Radler, the firm
has grown in size, scope, and depth. We
talked with him about law, management,
the pandemic, and the future.
Can you describe the role of managing
partner? A managing partner acts as the
chief executive officer of the law firm. We
have close to 400 employees, and more
than 200 attorneys spread out over five
offices. I am helped by an amazing administrative
team that helps us manage all the
nonlegal aspects of the law firm. My job
is to make sure the firm runs smoothly
so our lawyers can practice law, providing
the services our clients need.
Can you describe some of the firm’s
major accomplishments during your
tenure? I think we’ve succeeded over
the last eight years in expanding the
depth and breadth of a number of our
practice areas to meet the growing needs
of our clients. We grew from fewer than
150 attorneys to slightly more than 200
attorneys. We added considerable talent
in a variety of practice areas, most recently,
in light of what’s coming down from
Washington, taxes, and other regulations.
We expanded our practice in what
was formerly the trusts and estates area,
and is now called personal, family,
and business planning. We expanded
our health services practice, where we
represent physicians, medical practice
groups, healthcare systems and hospitals
in acquisitions, compliance, and regulatory
matters. The depth of our practice and
the size of our firm has grown.
How did the firm respond to the pandemic?
We’ve taken a very cautious,
conservative approach to working during
the pandemic. Our singular goal has been
the safety of our workforce and their
families. For a long time, we prohibited
anyone other than essential personnel to
come to the office. We only, starting this
week, required staff and attorneys to
come to the office two days a week. For the
balance of the last 14 months, we encouraged
people to work remotely. We learned
we are resilient. What seems difficult is
very possible if you have a positive attitude
and you work together. We were
pleasantly surprised at how quickly we
could transition to a remote environment
and satisfy our clients’ needs.
How will the firm operate differently,
if at all, after the pandemic? That’s
under careful consideration. We will act
differently. What that will look like has
yet to be decided. I don’t think anybody
thinks we’re going back to precisely the
way things were prepandemic. We set up
focus groups in the firm to make sure all
stakeholders, from partners to associates,
administrators to staff, can offer thoughts
and observations. We’ll gather those and
try to come up with policies that make
sense for the firm in the long term.
What areas of law are going strong and
what areas have slowed? Litigation
has, of course, slowed
down recently, because
the courts just now are
starting to figure out how
to recover from the pandemic.
That’s deferred.
Litigation will have
to continue and be
completed. A practice
area going
quite strongly,
in addition to
planning and
tax work, is
real estate.
There’s a
lot of lease
negotiation
going on,
investment
in properties,
not necessarily
in New York,
but by New York
investors. There’s a
fair amount of work
going on in the health
industry. Hospitals, doctors,
and ambulatory surgery
centers all face unique
challenges and that requires
counsel.
What are the firm’s plans for the future?
One of the things we’re most proud of in
recent times is the increased diversity
among our professional staff. It’s something
we worked very hard on and had
some success with and are working hard
to continue. A more diverse law firm is
a better law firm. It provides diversity
of thinking and better solutions for client
problems. From 2014 to now, we’ve
gone from nine to 23 female partners,
14 female associates and counsel to 41
female associates and counsel. We have
seven otherwise diverse partners and 19
otherwise diverse associates and counsel.
What advice would you have for those
considering a career as a lawyer? I
would tell anyone who wanted to be
a lawyer today to be sure that you’re
passionate about wanting to help people.
It’s a challenging profession, a rewarding
profession, but it’s a profession of
hard-working people.
What makes a lawyer a good fit at
Rivkin Radler? I think the most important
quality for lawyers at Rivkin Radler is
their personality and ability to be a team
player. They have to buy into the old
sentiment that says no one person can
accomplish as much alone as a group
of people working together.
What are the biggest challenges for
lawyers today? I think the biggest
challenge is to find the right worklife
balance. The world we live in
makes that much more challenging
than when I started practicing law.
Lawyers sometimes struggle to
find that work-life balance. There
needs to be a balance in what
you do for a living and
what you are as a
person.
CORNER OFFICE
No one person can accomplish as much alone as a group
of people working together.
Evan Krinick helps lead the largest law firm on Long Island.
/LONGISLANDPRESS.COM
