Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday nominated Steven Banks, former head of the Legal Aid Society, as the city’s chief lawyer, and named Helen Arteaga, chief executive of NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst, as the deputy mayor for Health and Human Services.
The appointments, Mr. Mamdani said, speak to the commitment of his incoming administration to improving life for the city’s most vulnerable residents.
Ms. Arteaga led Elmhurst, a public hospital that serves one million mostly poor patients annually, through the coronavirus pandemic. She was admitted to Elmhurst in 2020 after developing Covid and credits the hospital with saving her life.
The career of Mr. Banks, who once ran New York City’s Social Services Department, has been devoted to using the law to help people who are imprisoned or lack housing.
Mr. Mamdani wants Ms. Arteaga to attack health disparities, which often fall along racial and economic lines.
Mr. Banks, whose position is known as corporation counsel, will oversee the hiring of 200 attorneys to return staffing at the City Law Department to prepandemic levels. It is part of an effort to protect immigrant New Yorkers and the city from Trump administration policies such as the mass deportation of immigrants. Mr. Mamdani has said that he plans to use the legal system to protect the city from federal threats.
“My sincere hope is that New Yorkers who have long felt on the margins of this city, the homeless veterans straining to survive, the patient searching for the care that they need, an immigrant trying to get by, will feel that they now have leaders in their corner, who understand their struggles and care to fight for them,” Mr. Mamdani said during a news conference at Elmhurst Hospital.
Ramzi Kassem, whom Mr. Mamdani named as his chief counsel, will help in those efforts. He will serve as Mr. Mamdani’s chief legal adviser, while the corporation counsel is considered the city’s lawyer.
Mr. Kassem served as a senior policy adviser in the White House under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. He most recently was an administrator at the City University of New York School of Law. There he worked with the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility project to represent immigrants who had been detained by the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
After Mr. Mamdani met with President Trump at the White House last month, Mr. Trump seemed to back off threats to pull even more of the city’s federal funding. Mr. Trump has already taken back $80 million in federal aid that helped the city cover costs associated with an influx of migrants, and he canceled $18 billion in critical transportation funding.
The Trump administration has vowed to continue its deportation of immigrants.
Earlier this year, Mr. Banks resigned from his position as the head of the pro bono practice at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison after the firm struck a deal with the White House to avoid punitive executive orders. Mr. Banks said he was returning to the “front lines” and provided legal help for the homeless through the Coalition for the Homeless and the Legal Aid Society.
Mr. Mamdani, who will be sworn in as mayor just after midnight on New Year’s Day, has brought in a mix of old and new faces to fill out his administration. Mr. Banks and Mr. Mamdani’s first deputy mayor, Dean Fuleihan, served in the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Mr. Mamdani has retained several people from the administration of his predecessor, Mayor Eric Adams. They include Jessica Tisch as the commissioner of police and Michael Garner as chief business diversity officer for the Mayor’s Office of Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprises.
Catherine Almonte Da Costa, whom Mr. Mamdani named as his director of appointments, resigned after the Anti-Defamation League resurfaced antisemitic posts that she wrote more than a decade ago. Mr. Mamdani said he was unaware of the posts and overhauled his transition team’s vetting process by bringing in an outside law firm.
Mr. Banks will have to be approved by the City Council. Mr. Mamdani said that he had been in touch with the presumptive incoming speaker of the City Council, Julie Menin, about the nomination.
Jeffery C. Mays is a Times reporter covering politics with a focus on New York City Hall.
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