Brian Farkas ’10

AB, MPA, JD; New York, New York

A person with short brown hair, a dark formal jacket, and a burgundy patterned tie smiles at the viewer.

Brian Farkas ’10 was elected to Vassar’s Board of Trustees in 2018. He also serves as Vice President of the Alumnae/i Association.

Brian is an attorney at ArentFox Schiff LLP where he focuses his practice on complex commercial litigation. He represents clients in state and federal court, as well as in arbitration and mediation proceedings. Before joining ArentFox, he served as a law clerk to a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, and an associate at a midsize litigation firm. Each year from 2022–2016, he has been named a “Rising Star” by Super Lawyers for Business Litigation.

Outside of his law practice, Brian is passionate about higher education. He is an adjunct professor at Cardozo School of Law, where he teaches courses on arbitration, mediation, and dispute resolution. Multiple graduating classes have voted him “Best Adjunct Professor,” an award he received most recently in 2022. He is also an adjunct professor at the City University of New York (CUNY), where he teaches undergraduate courses on American law, negotiation, and conflict resolution.

My six-word story
“Advancing Vassar is my life’s work.”

His legal scholarship has appeared in numerous publications, including the Harvard Negotiation Law Review, NYU Journal of Law & Business, Lewis & Clark Law Review, Dispute Resolution Journal, and the Northeastern Law Journal.

Brian earned his MPA from New York University’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and his JD from Cardozo School of Law. During law school, Brian was Editor-in-Chief of the Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution, an academic journal dedicated to arbitration, negotiation, and mediation scholarship. He was awarded the Andrew S. Zucker Award for Academic Excellence.

Brian is a member of the New York City Bar Association, where he serves on the Board of Directors. For the City Bar, he chairs the New Lawyer Institute, which plans career development programming and mentoring to law students and recent graduates.

At Vassar, Brian served as Editor-in-Chief of The Miscellany News, and wrote a book about the newspaper’s history entitled “Covering the Campus: A History of The Miscellany News at Vassar College.” He also served as Vice President of the student government and Co-Chair of the Senior Class Gift.