Sydney M. Cone III
C.V. Starr Professor of Law
Director, Center for International Law

“I like to think of my 40-plus years in the law firm as a series of wonderful challenges and opportunities cropping up all over the globe—Brussels, Paris, Frankfurt, Moscow, Tokyo, and above all, New York,” says Sydney (Terry) M. Cone III of his many years as partner at the venerable New York City firm, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton.

Professor Cone, who is now senior counsel at the firm, has been resident in the firm’s Paris, Brussels, New York, and Washington offices, and was instrumental in establishing the firm’s Tokyo and Frankfurt offices and its representation of post-Soviet Russia. He is an expert in international business law, teaches courses on international finance and international economic law, and has published articles in both fields. His book, International Trade in Legal Services, was published by Little, Brown and Company in 1996.

Professor Cone is currently doing work in the area of, and writing about, multidisciplinary practice as well as aspects of the International Criminal Court. He is an authority on the rules regulating the practice of lawyers outside their home jurisdictions.

Professor Cone joined the faculty at New York Law School in 1996 as the first C.V. Starr Professor of Law and as founder and director of the School’s Center for International Law.

“The professor part was new but rather straightforward,” he says. “I started teaching International Finance, about which I actually knew something, and through an intensive process of dealing with recognized authorities on international trade I managed to create a course called International Trade Disputes. That was fun.” He still teaches those courses and International Business Transactions. He has also been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School.

“Creating a brand new Center for International Law was quite a different sort of challenge,” Professor Cone says. The Center (and the C.V. Starr Professorship) had been made possible by funding from the Starr Foundation. The Center started by organizing a series of symposia on international subjects in the areas of finance, trade, and human rights. The Center has since brought a number of distinguished lecturers to the Law School as part of its series of Otto Walter Lectures in International Law, including Advocate-General Anthony Huydecoper of the Dutch Supreme Court and Justice R.J. Goldstone of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. It also sponsors an annual panel on careers in international law and publishes a bi-annual award-winning newsletter, The International Review, on global issues in law.

“Now, we have another exciting challenge,” Professor Cone says, referring to the leading role of the Center for International Law in developing the Law School’s new honors program, the Justice John Marshall Harlan Scholars Program, named for its distinguished alumnus and U.S. Supreme Court justice. The Center will, he says, assist Harlan Scholars seeking diverse international experiences during their summers between school years. In addition, he emphasizes that the Center will work with individual Harlan Scholars, to help each of them customize their studies at the School in order to develop their knowledge in selected areas of international law, and thereby to realize their ambitions in those areas.

Professor Cone is a summa cum laude graduate of Haverford College and Yale Law School where he served as editor in chief of the Yale Law Journal. Professor Cone lives with his wife, an art historian, in Manhattan.

Contact information:
T:  212-431-2379 
F:  212-966-6393
E:  scone@nyls.edu
O: C305
Asst Dir: Michael Rhee
T:  212-431-2893
E:  mrhee@nyls.edu
O: C303

Education:
Haverford, B.A. 1952 summa cum laude
Yale, LL.B. 1959 summa cum laude (Law Journal, Editor in Chief).

Expert in international business law. Instrumental in developing rules for foreign lawyers practicing in United States, Europe, Hong Kong, and Japan. Member, Council on Foreign Relations and American Bar Association, Joint Working Group with Bar Council of European Community, and various committees of New York State and New York City Bar Associations. Partner for many years in firm of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton.

Courses:
International Finance International Economic 
  Law
International Business  
  Transactions


At New York Law School since 1996.