Memorial ceremony to honor Irwin Kosover
For the past four decades, judges and lawyers throughout the Kings County Civil Court System knew Irwin Kosover as an excellent lawyer and an honest man with a sense of humor. Fearless in negotiations and at trial, Kosover, a veteran defense attorney, often intimidated new plaintiffs’ lawyers who seemed more anxious to settle a case than to select a jury for trial. Kosover would look at them sternly and say, “You don’t think I’m really going to pay you anything on this piece of nonsense, do you?”
When Kosover’s photo appeared in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle a few years ago in connection with his winning battle to convince the judicial powers-that-be to shut down trials for a week or so during the summer, he complained about it to Eagle columnist Chuck Otey, asking, “What are you trying to do…cause trouble for me?!”
But in spite of Kosover’s tough-skinned demeanor, the Eagle learned that he secretly was pleased with the coverage of his successful effort to obtain what was dubbed the “Summer Kosover” — a period lawyers knew was safe to schedule family vacations. Following his death last Labor Day, one of his daughters, Carole Kosover, reached out to Otey, who authors the Pro Bono Barrister column for the Eagle, to tell him that her father had enjoyed the “Summer Kosover” articles — so much so that he would clip them out of the Eagle and mail them to her and her sister Amy.
Brooklyn Boro
View MoreNew York City’s most populous borough, Brooklyn, is home to nearly 2.6 million residents. If Brooklyn were an independent city it would be the fourth largest city in the United States. While Brooklyn has become the epitome of ‘cool and hip’ in recent years, for those that were born here, raised families here and improved communities over the years, Brooklyn has never been ‘uncool’.