New Bar President Geoff Trachtenberg
says “this is 100 percent different.” He
joined his father-in-law, Warren Leven-
baum, at his firm, and Geoff has remained
there happily, even after he and his wife
divorced. (His brother-in-law also works at
the firm.) And the pivot “took.”
“It turned out that I really had a knack
for this kind of work, and liked it.”
Trachtenberg’s involvement in the Arizona
legal community started with a typo, you
could say. A typo he noticed, not of his own
making, but one he corrected.
Ty Taber, a personal injury lawyer at
Aiken Schenk Hawkins & Ricciardi PC, explains how the new Arizona lawyer—in his
first week in town—spotted what he considered a mistake in a court rule. And he
brought it to the court’s attention.
Trachtenberg laughs as he explains. It
was a rule regarding service of process on an
out-of-state defendant, and the cross-refer-
ence to an affiliated rule was incorrect. He
told the clerk at the Supreme Court, who
summoned someone from a judge’s cham-
bers. They examined it, and “within a week
they issued this change in the rule; I re-
member being kind of proud.”
But the guy who can spot a typo is also
someone who “sees the big picture,” says
Taber. He describes Trachtenberg’s ap-
proach as “know what the issue is, don’t
waste time on minutiae, get it addressed, get
a decision made.”
Hard issues and challenging confron-
tations “are not things Geoff shies away
from,” Taber adds. “He will not take no for
an answer.”
Taber also praises Trachtenberg as a per-
sonal injury lawyer.
“He has a focused passion in his soul
that you don’t often see in younger law-
yers. There is a lot of maturity in that young
man.”
Dick Langerman agrees. The plaintiff’s
personal injury attorney says that Trachten-
berg has a strong personality and “leaves a
large footprint.”
“He takes on projects even when other
people say ‘It’s been tried; that will never
happen.’ Those words don’t deter him at all.
You can’t stop him from trying.”
In many people, that kind of strength can
have another face, and Langerman admits
that when it comes to matters he deems im-
portant, Trachtenberg “wants it right now.”
“He does not suffer fools
well,” says Langerman.
“I know I piss off a lot of peo-
ple,” Trachtenberg admits. “I’m
definitely not afraid to speak my
mind. I’m not afraid what peo-
ple might think if they found out
what I think. I’m not oblivious
to how they feel; I just don’t let
it interfere.”
He continues, “I don’t mind
being reflective and changing
my mind and apologizing when
I’m wrong, which happens. But
I also don’t mind being strident-
ly proud of what I think is right
and pushing forward.”
Chuck Muchmore describes
Trachtenberg as “a force of
nature.” An attorney at Scott
Skelly & Muchmore LLC with a
dispute resolution practice, Muchmore calls
the new President “very level-headed. And
he treats people well, and they are loyal to
him as a result.”
He adds, “He’s a hell of a fundraiser,”
praising his skill at persuading him to make
larger financial commitments to the Bar
Foundation.
Through various leadership positions,
Taber says the new Bar President has grown
in diplomacy and pragmatism. He is “
level-headed and takes the job seriously.”
Serious, yes. But Trachtenberg is also known
for having a wry and sometimes irreverent
sense of humor. Take his filmography.
Taber laughs as he calls Trachtenberg “an
amateur Alfred Hitchcock,” and his law-based short films draw audible laughs from
some viewers. For example, one video titled
“Better Call Geoff” addresses the harm
caused by ungainly margarine tubs. (Get
ready to chuckle at the satiric ads at http://
bettercallgeoff.com/ and the action-movie
Lienfall at http://lienfall.com/). It’s the
rare lawyer who can deliver a steely-voiced
“Preemption” as a mic-drop line.
Trachtenberg calls the films “a release,”
but he also says it offers the “chance to drive
a message home.” For example, when he ap-
pears as “Arizona’s leading butter lawyer,”
he conveys his opinion of some lawyer ads.
Based on a real incident in which a tub of
butter fell from a refrigerator and landed on
the foot of a woman (not his client), Tracht-
enberg says his first thought was “comedy
gold.”
Langerman agrees Trachtenberg’s hu-
mor may be an acquired taste. But he finds
his occasionally offbeat take on the law to be
entirely charming.
Only slightly less offbeat are Trachtenberg’s “sandwich summits,” lunchtime
gatherings of attorneys to discuss particular
topics.
Defense lawyer Don Wilson Jr. has at-
tended, and he lists them as one of the ways
Trachtenberg will be “a breath of fresh
air” at the Bar. It is “a welcome thing,” he
says, to gather lawyers across practice areas,
sometimes on different sides, “to share ideas
and see if there is agreement on law practice
topics.”
Trachtenberg lists the issue of voir dire as
one summit topic.
“Voir dire is something that is allowed
less and less by judges, and that’s not something that people on both sides like. It was
something we could agree on.
He says he likes “to bring folks together
because we are all really on the same side, ul-
timately. We have different clients, but we’re
all ultimately trying to get a fair outcome. It
doesn’t have to be us against them on every
issue. We don’t necessarily see everything
the same way, but there are many things that
we will see the same way; that is a stepping
stone.”
Wilson, at Broening Oberg Woods &
Wilson PC, describes Trachtenberg as “a
We have different clients,
but we’re all ultimately
trying to get a fair
outcome. It doesn’t
have to be us against
them on every issue.
