Name Howard Rubenstein | Role Publicizer | |
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Education St. John's University School of Law, Harvard Law School, University of Pennsylvania | ||
Howard J. Rubenstein is an American lawyer and public relations expert. He has been called "the dean of damage control" by Rudolph Giuliani.
Rubenstein grew up in a Jewish-American household in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn on 74th St. near Bay Parkway with an older sister. His mother was a homemaker, and his father was a Jewish crime reporter for the Herald Tribune. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Phi Beta Kappa in 1953 with a degree in economics. He then attended Harvard Law School, but dropped out partway through the first semester.
He then began writing press releases for a Brooklyn nursing home, the Menorah Home and Hospital for the Aged and Infirm, after his father had introduced him to some officials at the home. Initially he worked out of his parent's kitchen, but later moved out after his parents refused to answer the phone saying "Rubenstein Associates".
Business grew quickly; as Rubenstein later said, "I was the only Democratic press agent in Brooklyn, so the politicians started coming to me". He enrolled in St. John's University Law School to take night classes, and graduated in 1959 first in his class. He then took a job as an assistant counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, but quit after six months.
He is the president and founder of Rubenstein Associates, which has been described as the most influential public relations organization in New York City. The firm was founded in 1954. Rubenstein’s more notable clients include many of New York’s iconic organizations including: The New York Yankees, News Corporation, Columbia University, New York Philharmonic, Sarah – Duchess of York, Rupert Murdoch and The Metropolitan Opera.
He has been described as “a PR genius”, and “Public Relations royalty.”