Exclusive | Lawyer for Columbia Universitys Jewish students netted $6.4M payday while preying on own clients: lawsuit

A high-profile lawyer who became one of the nation’s most prominent advocates for Jewish college students after Oct.7 netted a whopping $6.4 million payday from a settlement with Columbia University — by preying on his own clients, a shocking new lawsuit claims.Marc Kasowitz’s firm had represented 43 Jewish and Israeli students who alleged Columbia failed to protect them during the violent anti-Israel protests and encampments that engulfed the Ivy League campus in Manhattan after the Oct.

7, 2023, terror attacks on Israel.The plaintiffs said that at first, they were thrilled to be repped by Kasowitz, a veteran Manhattan litigator who was the legal face of a national campaign against campus antisemitism.“When Kasowitz rode in on his white horse and was like, ‘Hey, we’re gonna fix this and make this right,’ I was like, ‘Hell, yeah,’ ” said Miles Rubin, a 31-year-old Columbia graduate and former Israel Defense Force reservist whose friends were killed during Hamas’ Oct.7 assault, to The Post.Kasowitz’s firm eventually reached a confidential mega-settlement with Columbia over the students’ accusations earlier this year, according to the new lawsuit, which was filed in Manhattan Supreme Court on Sunday.But Kasowitz then allegedly refused to give the plaintiffs his firm’s billing records from their case, while his cut totaled more than $6.4 million — well over half the settlement’s total payout, court documents claimed.The top lawyer also allegedly distributed the remaining settlement proceeds through a secretive non-appealable process and threatened that students who refused to sign the deal would have to proceed without his firm’s representation, according to the complaint.“Plaintiffs, all young students, had already endured harrowing antisemitic harassment on campus during the historic unrest following the Oct.

7 Hamas attacks, but never expected to be taken advantage of by the very lawyers they trusted to protect them,” th...