Who

The showboat of an attorney isn't going to win any awards for his complex legal theories, but there are few lawyers in New York as skilled at gobbling up TV airtime.

Backstory

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Sandy Rubenstein says he paid his way through Rockland Community College, SUNY Oswego, and Baruch College flipping burgers, cleaning floors, and selling men's suits. He later enrolled in night classes at Brooklyn Law and opened a legal practice out of a storefront in Bedford Stuyvesant, earning his first "big break" as a personal injury lawyer, he says, when he represented a Chinese immigrant who had been sexually molested at a discount department store. Other lucrative cases followed: During the 1970s, Rubenstein repped a police officer whose car was struck by an ambulance, and a Haitian cabbie who was shot by a cop.

The Rubenstein we know today—the local news fixture with slicked-back hair and custom-made double-breasted suits—emerged in the 1980s after he forged close ties with Al Sharpton, whom he's represented since the late 1980s. It was thanks to the good reverend that Rubenstein landed the biggest case of his career in 1997, when he was retained by Abner Louima in his civil lawsuit following his brutal assault by members of the NYPD. But Rubenstein's worked on countless other high-profile cases in recent years. The headline-chasing lawyer represented the families in the infamous Brooklyn "bodysnatching case"; Hisham Amer, the cabbie who claimed he was beaten up by taxi inspector; and the family of Onofrio Avvinti, the man who famously received a parking ticket while he was dying of a heart attack. Rubenstein famously sued actor Javier Bardem after the actor's "wild dancing" at a nightclub broke the nose of his client; he also defended Stephanie Adams, the self-described "first openly lesbian" Playboy Playmate who allegedly flashed her "vampire teeth" at a NYC cabbie in 2006 and threatened to shoot him. Rubenstein's partner in all this madness is Scott Rynecki, the other half of Rubenstein & Rynecki, P.C.

Of note

Rubenstein has been close to Al Sharpton for two decades and the relationship has worked out nicely for both men. Sharpton, of course, is the first person many members of the city's African-American community call when they've been victimized—and Rubenstein, of course, is the man who can extract large sums from the Man. It's an arrangement that has earned both men plenty of criticism—one colleague described them as "a pair of aluminum-siding salesmen" with Sharpton as the "canvasser" and Rubenstein as the "closer"—although both have denied the charge that's been occasionally lobbed at them over the years, namely that Sharpton receives kickbacks from the referrals he hands to Rubenstein.

The reverend's most valuable referral, of course, was Abner Louima in 1997; along with Johnnie Cochran, Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, Rubenstein garnered the Haitian immigrant an $8.75 million settlement from the city. More recently, Sharpton referred the family of Ousmane Zongo, the African immigrant who was shot and killed by a NYC cop in 2003, to Rubenstein, who won a $3 million judgment. But Sandy has helped Sharpton put money in his own pocket, too: The attorney filed suit against the city on behalf of Sharpton, arguing that the NYPD didn't do enough to protect him at a 1991 protest in Bensonhurst. The city settled for $200,000.

Personal

Rubenstein is divorced and a father of two. And while the location of his law office in downtown Brooklyn is intended to reflect the man-of-the-people image he cultivates, his brand of personal injury law pays nicely: He lives in a 42nd floor penthouse apartment on the Upper East Side and has a vacation home in Miami Beach.

True story

In 2001, Rubenstein's former PR firm, Workhouse Publicity, sued him over $2,000 in unpaid fees. In trademark fashion, Rubenstein promptly countersued in State Supreme Court, alleging breach of contract.