– In Memoriam –

 Steven J. Kumble was born in Borough Park, Brooklyn in 1933. At 17, Steve entered Yale University where he was elected into the Phi Beta Kappa Honors Society and ultimately graduated magna cum laude. Despite all the opportunities he could have pursued in New York City, Steve joined the United States Army and served on active duty from 1955 to 1957 as First Lieutenant to the First Infantry Division and later to the 10th Mountain Division. He then went on to earn his juris doctor degree at Harvard University Law School where he graduated cum laude in 1959. He was admitted to the New York State Bar the following year.

Steve is well known for founding the New York law firm Finley, Kumble, Wagner (“Finley Kumble”) in 1968 and forever changing the way law is practiced in the United States.  At the time of its founding, the law firm had 8 lawyers, including 5 partners and 3 associates.  By 1987, through a series of mergers, acquisitions, and lateral hires, as well as internal growth, Finley Kumble had grown to 700 lawyers, including 250 partners and 450 associates across 18 offices throughout the United States and Great Britain.  The partners themselves were some of the most accomplished lawyers in America and Finley Kumble’s clientele counted on a client list of the most influential and powerful individuals and companies in the country.  Never before had anyone created a full service, national law firm, whose top flight practitioners could handle any legal matter internally anywhere in the country: a company merger, a leveraged buyout, trade contracts, a highly publicized criminal trial, financings and contracts; from a real estate deal in Florida to a proxy fight on Wall Street, to a lobbying effort in Washington.

In 1986, Steve and Frank Wright, the former Executive Vice President of Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company, formed Lincolnshire Management, LLC, where Steve served as Chairman for the next 20 years. During that period, Lincolnshire completed 37 platform buyout transactions and grew from a small pledge fund to a firm with $900 million of institutional and individual funds under management. In 2005, Steve co-founded Corinthian Capital Group, LLC with Kenneth Clay and Peter Van Raalte, where they continued the same focused investment strategy they pioneered at their predecessor firm. At Corinthian, Steve and his team raised two institutional funds with $450 million in committed capital to complete 17 platform transactions aggregating over $1.2 billion in enterprise value.

Aside from his many professional accomplishments, Steve deserves to be recognized for his philanthropic endeavors, particularly his generosity to institutions of higher learning. The Kumble Plaza at the Harvard Law School was dedicated in his honor in 2004, while the Kumble Court at Yale University was dedicated in his honor in 2005. He also served as a member of the Board of Trustees at Long Island University, where he holds an Honorary LL.D., and is the namesake of the Kumble Theatre for the Performing Arts, an anchor of downtown Brooklyn’s cultural district.  Steve also served on the Governor’s Committee on Scholastic Achievement, the boards of the Rand Institute for Civil Justice, the Center for Jewish History, and still serves on the Harvard Law School Dean’s Advisory Board. 

 Steve assumed his new role as Chairman Emeritus in October 2019.