Bottger's career path – in fact, his entire life - is wonderfully eclectic. He journeyed from white-shoe corporate litigator to high-profile anti-corruption prosecutor to, for a time, a composer of Madison Avenue ad jingles. Only in his late 40s did he co-found what is today, Berkman, Bottger, Newman, and Schein, a unique and full-service force among Manhattan divorce-law boutiques. Bottger has a razor-sharp, competitive and, at times, playful intellect, readily peppering his arguments with references from Western literature and history, glimpses into the Harvard degree in English Lit he earned in 1961. Bottger detests abuses of power and political corruption, which he saw plenty of as a young anti-corruption prosecutor. In the 70s he joined a special state commission, under the authority of Governor Nelson Rockefeller and led by Maurice Nadjari, investigating police and political corruption in New York City. Armed with warrants and wiretaps, that Serpico-era commission did its job only too well: "I came to work every Monday and reviewed transcripts of wiretaps - one was more incredible than the next." The number of indictments handed down by the commission "made us pretty unpopular," he says. When the commission began training its sights on Republicans and Democrats alike, it was shut down by then Governor Nelson Rockefeller. "Suffice to say we had no friends." Approaching 40, Bottger pulled one of those career moves many in-the-trenches lawyers secretly admire: He started, with a Princeton music teacher friend who was equally restless, a business that developed and sold jingles to major ad agencies. Over five years Bottger cranked out many jingles, including a well-known "Dag-Dag-D'Agostino's" spot. "We thought it was so bad we didn't want the residuals," he says. The ear-worm, however, endures. After graduating from Harvard, he considered going to grad school and becoming a teacher, but once he settled in Manhattan, he went straight to Columbia Law School where he earned his LL.B. in 1965. A stint at Shearman & Sterling followed in which he sank into the soul-crunching legal mechanics of security disputations. By 1994 the Berkman Bottger firm had been launched where he transferred his zeal for justice by becoming an advocate for the divorcing spouses, focusing his energies on achieving fair outcomes for those in the midst of traumatic – and sometimes tragic - situations. Along the way, Bottger built a record in appellate cases, including arguing several matters before the State's highest court. With his fighting instincts tempered by a steady infusion of ballet, jazz, classical music, opera, and world travel, the author remains a compassionate and formidable champion of doing what is right.
Adapted from Stephen E. Clark, The Ten Leaders Cooperative, 2012.