As a Council Member Ben Kallos chaired the Governmental Operations Committee with oversight over elections and campaign finance. Ben wrote New York City's new full public matching campaign finance system, testified on the state system, and has been an outspoken critic of elections and ballot access in our city.
NY City Council · NY State Assembly (Albany) · White House (D.C.)
Fight the Power and Win!
I've fought for the community all my life, serving 8 years as a Council Member in the New York City Council, then in the White House.
8 years
New York City Council Member
60 laws
Authored as Council Member
$20 billion
City contracts overseen annually
How we help
Practice Areas
As a Council Member, Ben Kallos authored Retirement Security for All to offer auto-enroll IRAs to millions of New Yorkers, co-sponsored numerous New York City laws to protect you human rights, and has represented labor unions both as an elected official and attorney. Our firm is here to help you implement these laws, represent your members, and to help enforce your human rights.
Starting when he first ran in 2013, Ben Kallos refused money from real estate developers and has been a critic of elected officials who do, something that has led to regulatory capture of New York City by the real estate industry.
As Chair of the Contracts Committee in the New York City Council, Council Member Ben Kallos, oversaw $20 billion of goods and services contracts every year.
Benjamin Kallos has built coalitions at the local and national level, built and led advocacy campaigns, organized the community, and lobbied government for change, before, during, and after serving as a Council Member in the New York City Council and his work in the New York State Assembly and Executive Office of the President in the White House.
Our firm represents individuals, community groups, labor organizations, and the private-sector seeking court review of government action and meaningful protection of their legal rights.
Litigation focused on the decision that affects you
Public Policy
Public Policy Expertise
Benjamin Kallos has authored more than 60 laws and crafted public policy language and proposals featured in Presidential Executive Orders, Gubernatorial and Mayoral budgets.
Our firm helps organizations develop affordable housing policy that accounts for access, long-term affordability and the communities affected.
Policy for housing access and lasting affordability
Our firm helps organizations, municipalities, states, private-sector, and public policy leaders, develop artificial intelligence policies that address how automated systems affect people, public services and government decisions.
Legal policy for automated decisions
Our firms helps organizations, municipalities, and states, to develop election policies that make voting procedures clearer, participation more accessible and administration more accountable.
Policy for voters and election administrators
Kallos Law helps organizations develop government ethics rules that identify conflicts, define obligations and support public accountability.
Rules that people can understand and institutions can enforce
Our firms helps governments, organizations on the local and national scale, the civic and private sector, reduce legal and administrative barriers that keep people from receiving public benefits and services.
Designing benefits access around the people served
Our firm helps organizations, municipalities, and states design campaign finance reforms that make participation practical and rules enforceable.
Designing a system candidates can use
Our firm helps organizations, private-sector, municipalities, states, and public policy leaders shape the laws, contracts and public processes that govern technology in government.
Technology policy with implementation in mind
Our firm can help you research, draft, propose, and work to implement your public policy.
All public policy expertise →Results
Victories
When the city proposed a 5-year debarment of a Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprise (MWBE) employing thousands in our city, former Council Member Ben Kallos, helped secure a favorable settlement that kept the MWBE in business, protected more than $1 billion in contracts, and kept thousands on the job.
When the city proposed taking $70 million in home equity away from 240 shareholders in an affordable home ownership cooperative (HDFC) in Harlem, former Council Member Ben Kallos, supported the Board of Directors in negotiating and closing on a new regulatory agreement that protected the home equity built by shareholders over the past 20 years.
When a museum on the Upper East Side sought a liquor license to allow private parties with 17-bars until 4AM, indoors and out, former Council Member Ben Kallos helped a neighborhood association to negotiate stipulations on a liquor license that reduced the number of bars that could be used at any given
When a new private members club was proposed for an old office building that shared a common wall with neighbors with an open rooftop, Council Member Ben Kallos represented the neighbors in negotiating stipulations on the liquor license guided by acoustic engineers that limited hours, kept crowds off the street, and required the installation of sound mitigation.
When bags of trash spilled over sidewalks feeding rats making a block feel like a dump, former Council Member Ben Kallos, worked with management of buildings on the block to become early adopters of the city's new trash containerization program and secured commitment from Sanitation to pick up from new trash bins.
When a city-wide candidate used a donation platform that wasn't approved by the city, we were able to get $98,752 in public funds approved for a public matching payment.
It can be incredibly hard for progressive candidates to take on incumbent politicians backed by the political machine. Former Council Member Ben Kallos who oversaw the Board of Elections in the City Council is not afraid to take on ballot bumping from the political machine in any neighborhood.
When a performer of international renown was called out of the country she thought it would be safe to store her priceless 300-year-old cello with a national storage chain. In a matter of months, the contents of her storage unit were sold together with her priceless 300-year-old cello.
Past results do not guarantee future performance.
In the news
Press Coverage
The Transport Workers Union says it is prepared to challenge the ban in federal court if it passes.
TWU lawyer Ben Kallos said he believes a judge will overturn the legislation.
"They were supposed to figure out what the economic impact was. It's required by the city charter, and if you pull the economic impact analysis, it's blank," he said.
The workers were joined by their lawyers, Ben Kallos and Arthur J. Schwartz, who will argue in their pending lawsuit that Romanch’s Law constitutes a violation of their Fifth Amendment rights; specifically, they believe that it represents a “taking” of their property without “just compensation.”
“The bill, as it currently stands, is scheduled for a vote tomorrow,” attorneys Arthur Schwartz and Benjamin Kallos wrote on behalf of the Transport Workers Union in a letter to the city’s corporation counsel. “It includes a mess of Federal and State constitutional violations.”
“Its impact will be felt the minute the City Council passes the bill in its current form, even if the Mayor waits to sign it. If Mayor Mamdani signs it, it will hit like a bomb, even if it is a year or more before it ‘takes effect,’” wrote Arthur Schquartz and Ben Kallos, counsel for TWU.
A tony Upper East Side art gallery is pressing the city for permits that could potentially turn it into a hot spot that would put Studio 54 to shame.
The Frick Collection has filed an application to open up 17 new bars and hold events that could last until 4 a.m. — a proposal that angry neighbors say will transform the 88-year-old facility near Central Park on East 70th Street into a modern “high-class party space.”
...
“It is hard to fathom how many attendees would warrant 17 liquor service bars with 204 linear feet of bartenders,” East 70th Street Block Association attorney and former Upper East Side City Councilman Ben Kallos said in the letter obtained by the Post.
UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — The Frick Collection is fighting for their right to party, but neighbors say they're being left in the dark about what the museum actually plans to do...
In their new liquor license application reviewed by Patch, the museum would be allowed to have up to 17 bars slinging drinks, with up to 14 floors of the Frick — possibly even conservation areas — open to events, no stated event capacity limits, parties that could last until 4 a.m. and even bicycle deliveries...
"The Block Association was shocked to see a proposal for 17 liquor service bars," said the group's attorney and former Upper East Side City Council Member Ben Kallos at a Community Board 8 Street Life Committee meeting Tuesday night.
Kallos calculated, according to the Frick's application, that comes out to over 200 linear feet of bar service.
"It is hard to fathom how many attendees would warrant 17 liquor service bars with 204 linear feet of bartenders," Kallos said.
Benjamin J. Kallos, Esq
Change from the inside and the outside.
I've spoken truth to power and won in City Hall, Albany, Washington, D.C. I've fought and won change from the inside and the outside. After serving as an elected official in the City Council, and working in the New York State Assembly and Executive Office of the President in the White House, I can't imagine fighting for anyone other than you and your community.
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Contact the firm- Office
- Benjamin J. Kallos Attorney at Law PLLC
43 West 43rd Street, Suite 410
New York, NY 10036 - info@kalloslaw.com
- Phone
- 212-600-4960