Public Money, Private Control: How Wall Street Infiltrated NYC Legal Services
By Navruz Baum
Legal services are funded by the public, and are meant to serve the public. Yet they are controlled by corporate elites. Two of the most powerful figures overseeing New York’s legal services organizations—David Greenwald of the Legal Aid Society (LAS) and Joseph Polizzotto of the New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG)—are far from justice champions. They are Wall Street lawyers who have spent their careers serving banks, landlords, and private equity. Under their leadership, these organizations are bent toward serving the wealthy, not the public—degrading service through austerity and blocking advocacy for real systemic change. The very people responsible for the crises our clients face control legal services—warping it to protect power rather than challenge it.
David Greenwald: Expanding Criminalization, Controlling Public Defense
LAS Board Treasurer David Greenwald is a Wall Street fixture with vast influence over the NYC non-profit landscape. Greenwald spent nearly 20 years at Goldman Sachs and is now Chairman Emeritus at Fried Frank, a corporate law firm that represents landlords, banks, and private equity. According to his own bio, he spent his career “principally representing private equity”—helping the ultra-wealthy consolidate their power.
In addition to holding leadership roles at LAS and other nonprofits, Greenwald is Co-Chair of the Board of Trustees at Columbia University, where he has played a direct role in criminalizing pro-Palestine student activism. In testimony before Congress, Greenwald bragged about locking down the campus, banning student groups, escalating police presence, and calling in the FBI. Most recently, Greenwald and the Board of Trustees were exposed for paying students to call for further repression. Greenwald now oversees LAS, an organization tasked with defending people from the criminalization and over-policing he has promoted.
Joseph Polizzotto: Destabilizing Housing, Controlling Eviction Defense
Polizzotto, Chair of NYLAG’s Board, was responsible for compliance, audit, and government relations at Lehman Brothers until it collapsed in 2008—spurring one of the worst financial disasters in U.S. history. He wasn’t just a lawyer; he was a key player in Lehman’s strategy to fight regulation and flood the market with predatory financial products.
In 2006, Polizzotto opposed federal regulations on subprime mortgages, arguing that “an open market will mean that different institutions will develop different methodologies for [managing risk].” That “open market” led directly to the 2008 foreclosure crisis, where nearly 10 million Americans saw their homes seized by financial interests and the number of renters surged. Polizzotto, however, landed on his feet and continued his career as a general counsel at Deutsche Bank—which has itself been fined billions for helping create the foreclosure crisis. Polizzotto now oversees NYLAG, an organization tasked with defending tenants from the housing precarity he helped create.
Buying Control
Unfortunately, Greenwald and Polizzotto are not anomalies. The boards of LAS, NYLAG, Brooklyn Defender Services, Bronx Defenders, Neighborhood Defender Service, and New York City’s other legal service providers are rife with corporate lawyers and financial executives.
Nonprofits often stack their boards with wealthy donors, entrenching elite control. In fact, 68% explicitly require a financial contribution from their board members. Whether implicitly or explicitly, these organizations are handing over control of their work for the right price.
That price is often shockingly low. In fiscal year 2024, NYLAG received 76% of its funding from public sources and just 4% from philanthropy (the remainder comes from private grants and attorneys fees). At LAS, 93% of funding came from public sources, while Greenwald contributed under $50,000—0.013% of the budget—in fiscal year 2023. Despite contributing a fraction of the organization’s funding, board members have control over millions of public dollars and the direction of legal services.
Board members benefit handsomely from this arrangement. They gain legitimacy as “justice champions” and “paragons of leadership.” They distance themselves from the economic crises they helped create by positioning themselves as part of the solution, even as they continue to serve the interests of capital. A board seat isn’t just a title, it’s a tool to accumulate social capital, build influence, and rehabilitate reputations.
Harming Workers and Clients
Corporate control doesn’t just benefit board members, it harms workers and clients. Under the leadership of executives like Greenwald and Polizzotto, legal services organizations have been plagued by the type of austerity championed by the financial industry. In recent years, both LAS and NYLAG have asked workers to accept raises below the rate of inflation, inadequate benefits, and unsustainable caseloads. These practices drive out experienced workers, leaving clients with overburdened casehandlers without access to institutional knowledge.
The most insidious impact is corporate control of the organizations’ political direction. Not only do LAS and NYLAG steer clear of the abolitionist and structural changes necessary to eliminate clients’ issues, but they fight their own workers when they try to pick up the slack. LAS has banned emails discussing black history, fought against gender justice, and turned a blind eye to police brutality. NYLAG has retaliated against workers for supporting Palestine and attempted to censor pro-immigrant advocacy. Both organizations have publicly attacked their workers for their union statements, ignored worker calls to stop participating in events with ICE, and shared employee data with the agency.
Legal services under corporate control exist not to end exploitation, but to manage its consequences. These organizations stabilize capitalism, directing opposition into controlled, incremental reforms rather than real change. The goal isn’t justice—it’s containment.
Workers Fight Back
This dynamic isn’t inevitable. Legal services workers are organizing against austerity, repression, and elite control. Where boards push austerity, workers are demanding a living wage floor and sustainable workloads. Where boards suppress political expression, workers are demanding free speech protections. Where boards consolidate corporate control, workers are demanding worker and client representation on the boards of directors.
Legal services should be accountable to the people it serves—not the Wall Street lawyers who wield it for their own purposes. The fight for better wages, sustainable caseloads, and real political independence is part of a larger fight to break elite control and put power back in the hands of workers and clients.
The question is clear: will the future of legal services be determined by the people doing the work, or by the corporate executives who created the crises we fight against?
