Cover Photo Credit: Getty Images
Skyhorse Publishing
Attorney Sandor Frankel’s engaging, instructive, and highly readable memoir about his years as a specialist in tax fraud, and then as a trustee overseeing a five-billion-dollar estate, should appeal to anyone interested in the law and human relations – now, especially, when the culture of the day is fraught with cynicism and corruption. His book, The Accidental Philanthropist: The True Story of an Unexpected Journey, should be must-reading for those law school applicants – and graduates - who are motivated mainly by the prospect of Big Money or who are trying out the legal profession because nothing else has caught their fancy. What Frankel recounts with wit and wisdom shows off his wide and challenging legal experience with clients at both the trial and appellate levels. And his sensitivity and success. Not bad for a kid from the Bronx who played stickball on some mean streets but whose academic determination and sense of fair play led him to Harvard Law School, then litigation, then philanthropy.
The memoir has two parts. First, there’s Frankel’s younger years as an only child of divorced but loving parents (he was born in 1943), as a public school student, courtroom trial lawyer and then, along with other attorneys, working on defending Leona Helmsley, culminating in being asked by her to lead other trustees in disposing of her huge estate by investing in charities for the public good. And that’s the second part of the book. Yes, Leona Helmsley. The “Queen of Mean,” Helmsley, who died in 2007 and, to the tabloids’ delight, left $12 million of her vast fortune to her white Maltese terrier, Trouble. The amount was later reduced by a judge.
Over their 18-year association, Frankel acknowledges that she fired and rehired him at will. Some of the anecdotes are wildly funny, if not shockingly arrogant, but Frankel sensed Leona’s loneliness and wariness as a targeted rich widow. She had no reliable friends, family, or associates, and it’s clear that over time Frankel takes her quirks with a grain of salt, if not contained affection. It’s also obvious, though he’s too modest to say so, that she trusted him to do “The Right Thing” with her money. And he did, with her approval, establish world-renowned, carefully monitored charities dedicated to research and treatment for Crohn’s Disease, which afflicts about a million people in the U.S. and 2 million worldwide—and to s supporting the survival, security, and well-being of Israel by way of huge grants for medical care and technology.
The memoir covers global as well as personal history, revisiting the last decades of the 20th century through the eyes of an intelligent, dedicated major player who recounts events in a relaxed, conversational manner, full of jokey asides, acknowledgment of other views, and entertaining stories that exemplify the democracy of his experiences in civil and criminal cases, taking on all manner of clients, including a “rogues’ gallery of alleged tax fraud and other miscreants,” dealing with Imelda Marcos, and other high-profile clients in the music and entertainment industry. And his heartfelt devotion to Israel.
Frankel’s father once said, “It’s good to have money, but there’s no price for a good night’s sleep.” That’s the best way to practice law or philanthropy, or…most anything else,” Frankel concludes. Amen.
