Suite Talk: Kenneth M. Stenger, partner at Stenger, Diamond & Glass LLP
Kenneth M. Stenger is a partner with the Wappingers Falls law firm Stenger, Diamond & Glass LLP and is among the most prominent attorneys in the Hudson Valley. But when he graduated from Georgetown University Law Center in 1976, he decided to pursue a very different career route.
In this week”™s edition of Suite Talk, Business Journal Senior Enterprise Editor Phil Hall speaks with Stenger about his unlikely detour from his law school graduation to becoming a partner in his own business.
According to your corporate biography, you went to law school and then you started producing concerts. How did you get from Point A to Point B?
“There really was not much difference between Point A and Point B. I went to law school out of college and was a lawyer at the age of 23. I wanted to be in music all my life. When I graduated from Georgetown, I was too young to wear a tie and briefcase and go to work in corporate D.C. ”” it was not what I wanted to do, but I wasn”™t sure what I wanted to do.
“I came back to Dutchess County and I interviewed sporadically, because at 23 I was too young to start out on my own as a lawyer. When I was 24, the Mid-Hudson Civic Center opened in Poughkeepsie and my old English teacher from freshman year in high school was a promoter. I got introduced to some management people and I started there managing the security, then managing the stage and managing the concessions. And suddenly I found another track that fit my life better because it was allowing me to do something that I thought I could do well, and it was giving me an opportunity to succeed on my own.
“And it”™s also about rock and roll. There”™s a picture I keep on my desk of myself, introducing Judy Collins to an audience full of folks ”” it was on Mother”™s Day and my mom was center front row. As that career continues, I get into larger levels of engagement, managing larger shows, I”™m taking on new responsibilities. And it goes to on until I am 30.”
Uh oh, is this where the music career ends and the legal career begins?
“When I”™m 30, I had all of this experience in my background on how to manage a business, how to run an event, how to deal with extraordinary pressure, and how to lead ”” all by virtue of those experiences. Rock and roll is a young man”™s and young woman”™s business ”” it was always lovely, but it was time to get out. And it was time to use the skills that I learned at Georgetown ”” or, I should say, the things that I learned in Georgetown ”” and use them with the skills that I had learned in rock and roll.
“The idea of a rock star really was bigger than just somebody standing on stage. For me, the first rock star I know in a movie involving lawyers is Atticus Finch in ”˜To Kill a Mockingbird,”™ because he was a guy that had talent and charisma and was willing to take a stand. And he didn”™t back down.
“There”™s a corporate approach to being a lawyer, where one lawyer reports to the next one reports to the next one and everybody wants to be a partner ”” and it”™s all regimented. There”™s that, but there”™s an ethos of being a lawyer for me that I learned from rock and roll, which was you bring the best game you have every day. You expect things not to work out, but you”™ll be patient and things will work out. And you learn how to lead ”” and you learn that you can never lead from behind.”
When you began practicing law, you were originally doing criminal cases and real estate closings, which is very different from what you”™re doing today with litigation, land use and development and more complex real estate cases. So how did you reinvent yourself from a new Point A to today”™s Point B?
“I came into practice during the Carter years when interest rates were 24% for buying a house and the work you could find was being a real estate closer ”” if you could read the contracts, you could learn the business and you kept dollars. That practice expanded into the criminal area, which was all misdemeanor work as a young lawyer normally starts with ”” mainly DWIs.
“There was a fellow I knew from D.C. who was very successful at this time, and he called me at my office, which was about as big as closet. He said, ”˜I got a deal, I”™m going out with the Stones to do merchandise, do you want to go out?”™ And I looked at the phone and I just said, ”˜No, I can”™t stop now. I”™m here and I”™m going to be a lawyer.”™ From that point forward, I just worked hard at learning how to be a lawyer.”
How did your law firm deal with the Covid-19 pandemic?
“One thing I know about having led people in a business is that you can”™t lead from behind. The other thing I learned in rock and roll was that you”™ve got to look like you have a plan, even when you don”™t have one. And sometimes that will just allow the plan to emerge.
“What happened here is that when the office was closed for a week, were people on the phone talking each other. But I intuitively knew that this isn”™t going to work ”” the leadership of the firm had to be in the office and people had to see that you”™re there.
“There are things that you can do to protect yourself from the communication of disease, but at that point nobody knew exactly what was confronting us. Some of us were willing to take the risk immediately of confrontation, and some of us did not. Everyone came to this at their own speed.
“Over time people, our people, responded to that leadership in their own way. And if they weren”™t physically in the building, they were at work anyway, because they were connected to each other. When the governor said, ”˜Okay, you guys can now be open,”™ this firm was open fully 30 seconds later because our people were prepared for it, ready for it and wanted it.”