Born in
Manhattan on November 8, 1926, Millstein graduated from
Bronx High School of Science in 1943. He graduated from
Columbia School of Engineering and Applied Science in 1947 and received a
J.D. degree from
Columbia Law School in 1949. Millstein joined Weil, Gotshal & Manges in 1951 and remained at the firm for the rest of his career, celebrating his 70th anniversary in the firm in 2021. During his tenure at Weil, he counseled the boards of
General Motors,
General Electric,
Westinghouse Electric Corporation,
WellChoice, and
The Walt Disney Company among others. He also played a role in New York's financial rescue during its fiscal crisis in the 1970s.
Wall Street Journal described him as one of
Wall Street's most powerful lawyers. Millstein served as chairman of the antitrust law section of both the
American Bar Association as well as the
New York State Bar Association. Governor
George Pataki appointed him to chair a commission that led to the 2009 Public Authorities Reform Act of
New York state. He was a close friend of
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, brokering a meeting between Ginsburg and Senator
Orrin Hatch that eased her way to a judgeship on the
D.C. Circuit. A proponent of
stakeholder capitalism, he helped the
Business Roundtable draft its
Statement on Corporate Responsibility 1981. He also chaired several OECD initiatives and advisory groups on improving corporate governance standards in member countries.
Institutional Investor called him an "éminence grise of corporate governance and prime mover of the OECD governance codes." He promoted the philosophy that corporate power should be distributed beyond top executives, and that independent boards of directors could better hold corporate executives to account and remind companies of their obligations beyond profit-making, including obligations to employees and customers. Millstein was also the founding chair of The Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership at Columbia Law School, which explores how corporate governance should adapt to changing social norms and pressures. Millstein was elected a fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1995. He was also a board member of the
National September 11 Memorial & Museum. He was elected chairman of the board of trustees of the
Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 2004. == Personal life ==