William Schwartz is counsel in the New York office of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. His practice is concentrated in the areas of trusts and estates, business law and family law.

Prior to joining Cadwalader, William served as the Dean of the School of Law at Boston University (1980 1988). He also served as Vice President for Academic Affairs (Chief Academic Officer) at Yeshiva University (1993 1998). He has also been a Professor of Law at Boston University and was a faculty member of Harvard Medical School’s Frances Glessner Lee Institute. William continues to be a University Professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. He has authored eighteen books and fifty five articles.

William is a Director of Viacom, Inc. and Viacom International, Inc., where he is a member of the Compensation Committee, the Governance and Nominating Committee, and the Ad Hoc Committee, and a trustee and/or advisor to trusts with assets in excess of $1 billion. William has also served as the General Director (Chief Executive Officer) of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, as a member of the Legal Advisory Committee of the New York Stock Exchange, and as a Representative to the Office of Public Information of the United Nations.

William earned his M.A., and J.D., magna cum laude , from Boston University and received the Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Yeshiva University and Hebrew College. He is admitted to the bars of the District of Columbia (1956), the States of Massachusetts (1962) and New York (1989), and the United States Supreme Court (1987). William is a member of the New York State Bar Association, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, the Massachusetts Bar Association, the American Bar Association, the American Law Institute, and the American College of Probate Counsel. He is the first and only Honorary Member of the National College of Probate Judges.