Peter Lenard Zimroth was born on January 11, 1943, in
Brooklyn, New York, the son of Sol and Ruth (née Sadowsky) Zimroth. Raised in the
Bensonhurst and
Sheepshead Bay sections of
Brooklyn, he graduated from
Abraham Lincoln High School,
Columbia University and
Yale Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the
Yale Law Journal. After receiving his law degree in 1966, he served as a
law clerk to Chief Judge
David L. Bazelon of the
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and then for Justice
Abe Fortas of the
United States Supreme Court. In 1970, he joined the faculty of the
New York University School of Law. The next year, he represented police detective and whistleblower David Durk during his testimony before the
Knapp Commission. Zimroth later served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the
Southern District of New York and as the Chief Assistant District Attorney of
New York County under longtime District Attorney
Robert Morgenthau. Following a period of private practice, he served as the New York City Corporation Counsel during the mayoralty of
Ed Koch. He argued three cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including
Payton v. New York and
Board of Estimate of City of New York v. Morris. After leaving the municipal government, Zimroth became a partner at
Arnold & Porter in 1990. Following his retirement from the firm in 2015, he rejoined New York University's law faculty as a Distinguished Scholar in Residence. On August 12, 2013, U.S. District Court Judge
Shira Scheindlin appointed Zimroth to oversee court-ordered reforms to the NYPD’s policies and training related to
stop-and-frisk, one of the remedies opinions in the multi-faceted
Floyd v. City of New York decision. ==Awards==