Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:28:00

By Carl Winfield

Eliot Spitzer has resigned from the state’s top job and may yet be disbarred if indicted, but his professional life need not be over, according to several top professionals.
“He’s rich, famous and, frankly, does not need the work,” said legal recruiter David B. Sarnoff, a partner at Morandi, Taub & Sarnoff. “But he has a Rolodex with the names of the most powerful people in the city. That’s worth something.”
Despite Spitzer’s extensive experience as a prosecutor, Sarnoff believes Spitzer would be relegated to the back office of firms looking to have access to his contacts and not suffer from bad press due to the former governor’s ethical lapses.

Day 1-Day 442: The Spitzer Legacy

Full coverage on NYCapitolNews.com...

• Spitzer's Wake
• Now Who Would Get the Senate Seat?
• Silda Wall Spitzer’s Effects and Michelle Paige Paterson’s Prospects
• Questions Swirl Over Which Firms Stand on Solid Ground
• In Alabama, a Lieutenant Governor who Became Governor, then Lieutenant Governor Again
• The Next Step for the Career Cut Short
• Once Governor, Always Governor
• Signs of Change
• Bond Issues

And Spitzer is not, after all, the first attorney who has had a fall from grace, nor will he be the last, said Tricia McGrath, an attorney recruiter at BCG in Manhattan.
“Lawyers get caught for things like this and worse all the time,” McGrath said. “Believe me: he’ll do just fine. He’s probably gotten tons of job offers already.”
Spitzer could also turn to his 84-year-old father, real estate developer Bernard Spitzer, who helped finance his son’s political career starting with his first run for attorney general in 1994.
“Unlike us normal humans, he’s got a fortune,” McGrath said. “He could take his own millions and start a foundation or just work with his dad.”
Whatever he wants to do, several life coaches interviewed agreed that Spitzer may need some help moving beyond the effects of his exposure in the press.
“Spitzer cannot restructure his past,” Siegel said. “He made poor decisions because his personal views did not match his private ones, but if he can acknowledge that and move on, there’s nothing stopping him.”
But according to Dr. Marianna Lane, a licensed life coach who currently teaches at New York University, Spitzer may need something more than a life coach if he seeks to work again.
“Coaches do not tell people what to do,” she said. “We rely on our clients to ask themselves the tough questions. If someone like Spitzer cannot look at his situation objectively and come up with solutions for himself, he may have to find a therapist.”