Robert “Bob” Josefsberg traces his legal skill set all the way back to his upbringing. As a teenager in Brooklyn he attended Lafayette High School, an institution which, as the Podhurst Orseck senior partner readily discloses, has since closed “because it had the lowest graduation rate and the highest crime rate of any school in New York.” But for all of its faults, Josefsberg maintains the school gave him the most valuable education he ever received.

“I learned more about talking to jurors at Lafayette High School than I did at an Ivy League college and law school,” Josefsberg said, adding many of his childhood friends did not have the means of his peers at Dartmouth College and later, Yale School of Law. He believes his ability to empathize with people regardless of their background or disposition — as well as his lack of a “big vocabulary” — accounts for his decades of success, not only as a trial lawyer, but in his personal life as well.