EXPERIENCE

From 2014 through 2022, Steve served as commissioner of the New York City Department of Social Services (DSS), the largest social services agency in the United States, managing approximately 16,000 staff serving over three million New Yorkers per year with an annual budget of $12 billion. In that role, he established and led reforms for many high-impact DSS programs, including the first-in-the-nation Right to Counsel program for low-income tenants, expanded legal assistance for immigrants, and streamlined, modernized and increased access to Cash and Rental Assistance, Food Assistance, Medicaid, and other programs that address income inequality and prevent and ameliorate homelessness.

In April 2016, following a comprehensive review of the city’s homelessness policies, former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed Steve to lead the Department of Homeless Services, in addition to the Human Resources Administration, as head of a joint management structure under the DSS. During his tenure, the DSS decreased evictions, reduced the number of families experiencing homelessness and residing in shelters, closed substandard shelters, and dramatically enhanced and expanded housing assistance for low-income families and individuals.

Prior to serving in city government, Steve spent over three decades at New York City’s Legal Aid Society, the country’s oldest and largest not-for-profit legal aid organization. From 2004 to 2014, Steve was the attorney-in-chief at LAS, where he managed the legal practice and operations of the criminal, juvenile rights and civil programs run by the organization, which handled 300,000 legal matters each year in all five boroughs. He became the attorney-in-chief when LAS was facing a $21 million deficit and is generally credited with helping the organization regain financial stability, implementing effective management practices, and developing a national reputation for innovative legal leadership. At LAS, he had an extensive track record of working productively with a diverse and unionized workforce and helping the city's most vulnerable residents.

In 2008, Steve helped reach a landmark settlement in McCain v. Koch, resulting in the establishment of a permanent enforceable right to shelter for families experiencing homelessness in New York City. For many years, he also served as counsel to the Coalition for the Homeless, enforcing the right to shelter for single adults.

Since joining Paul, Weiss, Steve has been leading: a Paul, Weiss team working with Legal Aid to represent the Coalition for the Homeless in the litigation to protect New York City’s landmark right to shelter; a Paul, Weiss team representing New York City in its lawsuit to recover the costs of care from bus companies that are transporting individuals to the city to implement the Texas Governor’s plan to shift the traditional costs of migration to New York to force a change in national immigration policy: Paul, Weiss’s partnership with New York City as the anchor firm in its initiatives to help these newly arrived individuals obtain immigration status so that they can work and move out of shelters; the Paul, Weiss team’s successful lawsuit on behalf of the New York City Board of Correction against the New York City Department of Correction to restore 24/7 video access to monitor conditions at the Rikers Island correctional facilities; the Paul Weiss team’s partnership with the Robin Hood Foundation to provide “legal health checkups” for its grantees to help strengthen the not-for-profits that provide front-line services in every low-income community in NYC; and the Paul, Weiss team’s extensive legal support for New York Attorney General Leticia James’ reproductive rights task force.

Steve is frequently featured in media coverage on access to justice matters, including New York Times profiles in 2015 and 2022 featuring his work to help New Yorkers in need. In 2024, Steve was named a “Trailblazer in Law” by City & State New York.