Flaster Greenberg PC is honored to announce the establishment of the Laura B. Wallenstein Memorial Scholarship fund at Rutgers University Law School – Camden. The scholarship was created in memory of longtime shareholder, Laura B. Wallenstein, a 1977 graduate of Rutgers Law School and the first woman to ever hold the position of Shareholder at Flaster Greenberg PC. She passed away in September 2022 at the age of 77.
Flaster Greenberg initiated the scholarship fund with a pledge of $25,000. Contributions to the scholarship fund are also being accepted through the Rutgers University Foundation.
First- and second-year law students attending Rutgers University School of Law – Camden, who embody Laura’s passion for excellence in law and who share her ambition for the advancement of women in the legal profession, are encouraged to apply. The first scholarship award will be announced this Fall.
“We are proud to be able to create this scholarship fund to honor Laura’s legacy and the lasting impact she had on our law firm and the legal profession,” said Shareholder and Firm Co-Founder Stephen Greenberg. “Laura was a wonderful partner. She was caring, patient, terrific with clients, who often became friends, a great teacher of young lawyers and paralegals, always willing to help, and never had a cross word. We were all truly blessed to have her as a colleague and friend, and it is not an exaggeration to say that she helped shape our firm. Laura did all of this while raising two wonderful daughters, much of the time as a single mom. She was simply amazing.”
An accomplished and trailblazing attorney, Laura joined Flaster Greenberg in 1980 and became an equity shareholder after just five years, when only ten percent of the partners at law firms were women. She was a name shareholder of the firm, until it was abbreviated to Flaster Greenberg PC in 1999. Laura was a champion for women’s causes and regularly mentored younger female attorneys. Early on, she helped spearhead and develop an internal women’s group where the women lawyers would gather to support, learn from, and share with each other. This has since been formalized as the firm’s internal Women’s Initiative Committee, which continues to support the professional development and work-life balance of the firm’s women attorneys. Laura concentrated the entirety of her legal practice in corporate, business, tax planning, and family wealth transfers. She also practiced in health care law. She was known within the firm as the unofficial head of its Trusts & Estates Practice and was the architect and draftsperson for most of the estate planning documents the firm uses to this day. She also served on the firm’s management committee and was regarded by all who knew her as one of the leaders of the firm. She retired in 2016.
While attending Rutgers Law School, she was an editor of the Law Review and upon graduation was the valedictorian of her class. She also was a 1966 graduate of Smith College with a degree in mathematics and earned her LLM in Taxation from NYU in 1981.
To donate toward the Laura B. Wallenstein scholarship fund, visit: give.rutgers.edu/WallensteinScholarship.
Rutgers Law students will be able to apply through the Rutgers websites. The link for the application is forthcoming.
To read more about Laura, click here.
