Crain's New York, April 2009

Crain's New York

April 2009

Crain's New York

40 Under 40

A self-described political junkie, Carolyn Richmond jumped at the chance to volunteer for President Bill Clinton’s reelection campaign in 1996. Ms. Richmond, a junior associate at a law firm, received Secret Service training to be a driver in the president’s motorcade and transported White House staffers around New York.

Her adventure provided entrée into another world. At a political fundraiser the following year, she met prominent restaurateur Stephen Hanson, who helped her become one of the city’s most-sought labor law attorneys specializing in restaurants and bars.

“Steve gave me my first chance,” says Ms. Richmond. At 27, she wrote an employee handbook for Mr. Hanson’s empire, which includes Blue Water Grill and Isabella’s, and later became his in-house general counsel.

“She helped us understand laws that you would never know in a hundred years, so that we could be squeaky-clean,” says Mr. Hanson.

Now, the native New Yorker and Cornell University graduate is co-chair of Fox Rothschild’s hospitality practice, a 30-attorney division that represents many of the most popular eateries in the city.

With the industry under siege from wage-and-hour lawsuits and a more activist city health department, Ms. Richmond is defending some of the biggest names in the business, such as Bobby Flay and Drew Nieporent.

Her mentors Mr. Hanson and Nadine Strossen, a former head of the ACLU for whom Ms. Richmond was a research assistant provided a blueprint for success: “Steve expects perfection, and Nadine worked around the clock,” she says.

– Lisa Fickenscher