Jeff Korek is an affable guy with a twinkle in his eyes.
When he”™s not working, you can catch him shooting hoops in the driveway of his Tudor-style house in Scarsdale. Cleopatra, his 2-year-old pet Weimaraner, is often the lone spectator.
Korek also plays in pick-up games on Sundays and Tuesdays at nearby basketball courts.
It keeps him loose.
It also serves as a refuge from days that are played out in other kinds of courts.
Korek routinely enters courtrooms in New York and New Jersey trying to bring justice to those who have met untimely deaths or whose lives have been twisted 180 degrees, from once viable, loving human beings to brain-damaged or physically impaired shells of their former selves.
Korek is a personal injury lawyer for the Gersowitz Libo & Korek law firm on lower Broadway in New York City.
He is very successful at what he does; he was just named for the sixth straight year to New York Super Lawyers, which is based on a vote of his peers.
He is also past president of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association.
After earning his undergraduate degree from SUNY Binghamton and his law degree from Hofstra University, Korek learned law from the bottom up. He started off as being a chauffeur, receptionist and file clerk for F. Lee Bailey and Aaron J. Broder. “You couldn”™t really call me a paralegal.”
Admitted to the bar in 1986, Korek worked as a trial attorney for law firms Weitz & Luxenberg and Leahey & Johnson.
In 1992, he joined Edward Gersowitz and Andrew Libo, colleagues at Bailey and Broder”™s law firm.
Over the years, the firm has successfully handled dozens of cases, including high-profile ones such as the trampling death of a Walmart security guard on Black Friday 2008 and the head trauma incurred in a car crash by David Goodwick, the former CEO of Leverage Marketing Group in Newtown, Conn.
“We”™ve made a difference in a lot of people”™s lives,” Korek said.
“Money doesn”™t bring back a child. Justice is sometimes shifting money from one side to the other. It sounds like lip service, but it”™s not.”
Traumatic injuries result in a litany of issues and ongoing treatments from diapers and catheters to home attendants. “They have to be paid for … money can help restore dignity.”
Korek said basketball is a way to compartmentalize his work life.
While playing in a pick-up basketball league in Dobbs Ferry, Korek met Dexter Gardiner.
Gardiner and his twin brother Derrick grew up playing street ball at St. James Park in the Bronx. “They ran the park with their team,” Korek said. If you were a street-baller and said you had played St. James when the Gardiners played, “it would speak to the quality of the game.”
It wasn”™t until about a year of playing together that Korek learned of the horror that had befallen Gardiner”™s family in 2006. After the deaths of his mother and sister early in 2006, Gardiner”™s twin brother and four other family members died in a car crash that summer on the Bronx River Parkway. To remember them, Gardiner started a basketball tournament. He had asked Korek if he would be able to donate some money or show support in some other way.
Korek went back to his partners and said they wanted to get involved. And at last summer”™s tournament they did so in a big way. From uniforms to trophies to scholarships to laptops, the law firm gave back to the community.
And while the two-day event pulls in 10 teams with 12 players each, the bigger draw is the crowd; last year numbering around 2,000. That”™s a lot of food and drink.
In addition to the basketball, the event also honors those families who have suffered grief.
For this August”™s fifth annual Gardiner Memorial Basketball Classic, a letter was sent to sometime basketball player and fulltime President Barack Obama to pay a visit. No reply yet.
As far as the caliber of those playing, Korek said the quality is unbelievable.
Korek”™s team, Lawyertime.com, was no match for a team sponsored by rapper Jadakiss that featured former NBA player Kenny Satterfield and former University of Arkansas star Kareem Reid.
“We hung in for the first half,” Korek said, “and got blown out in the second.”
Korek is seeing himself as more of a mentor on the basketball courts these days.
He smiles, saying, “I used to be ”˜the kid.”™ I”™m becoming the ”˜older guy”™ on the court.”
