Mr. Lewis has been deeply involved in the Poughkeepsie community for over 50 years. He served for twenty years on the Board of Trustees of Marist College, and for twenty- five years as Vice-President of the Bardavon 1869 Opera House. He has also been President of Dutchess County Landmarks, President of the Amrita Club, President of the Dutchess County Bar Association, President of the Poughkeepsie Rotary, President of the Jewish Federation of Dutchess County and President of the Dutchess County Historical Society. He has served as a board member of the City of Poughkeepsie Historic District, the board of Planned Parenthood, the board of The Republican Majority for Choice, and the board of Vassar Temple. For many years he hosted a Trivia Contest as a fund raiser for the Association of Senior Citizens. He was instrumental in merging the Poughkeepsie Squash Club with The Poughkeepsie Tennis Club and was an active squash and tennis player. He was a co-founder, with his close friend Joe McGowan, of a squash for kids’ program at Catherine Street Community Center. He also merged the Hebrew Benevolent Society with Vassar Temple so as to obtain more burial space for Vassar Temple. He is a co-founder with Allan Page of The Hudson Institute for Renewable Energy. For fifty years Lou has served as the leader of a Sherlock Holmes society in Dutchess which has about one hundred members and meets for dinner twice a year. He established a scholarship fund at the Community Foundation for graduates of Poughkeepsie High School.
In 1978, Mr. Lewis founded what would become the law firm of Lewis and Greer, PC. He has spent most of his professional career working in the area of real property taxation. He was lead counsel in defending the property tax litigations surrounding the Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant and spent 220 days trying that case in Riverhead, New York. He has written and lectured on special problems in property valuation, valuing generating stations, and the municipalization of electric properties. He has been counsel to many local not-for- profits including The Scenic Hudson Land Trust, Locust Grove, Catherine Street Community Center and Walkway Over the Hudson.
Affiliations
• 1969, New York; 1971, U.S. District Court, Southern and Eastern Districts of New York and U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
• 1986, U.S. Supreme Court
Professional/Community
• Confidential Law Clerk, Office of the Corporation Counsel, New York City, 1968-1969
• Trustee, Marist College, 1971-1991
• Commissioner, Poughkeepsie Historic Districts, 1974-1980
• Hearing Officer, New York State Education Department, 1982-1994
• Dutchess County Bar Association, President, 1992-1993
• New York State Bar Association (Member: Tax Certiorari Law Section)American Bar Association (Member: Labor and Employment Law Section)
• New York State Association of School Attorneys
• President of The Jewish Federation of Dutchess County, 2012-2014
• Baker Street Irregulars (Member), 1998-present
Publications
• “School Tax Refunds – The Not-So-Sleeping Giant,” Journal of the New York State School Board Association, March 1976
• Contributing Author, of “Review and Reduction of Real Property Assessment in New York,” update to Chapter Eight
“Special Valuation Problems” 1999
• Contributing Author: Supplement to “Review and Reduction of Real Property Assessment in New York,” Third Edition, New York State Bar Association, 2000
• Co-Author of “Municipalization of Electric Properties,” Talk of the Towns & Topics (July/Aug. 2002)
Background/Education
A lifelong resident of the City of Poughkeepsie and graduate of Poughkeepsie High School Class of 1958, Lou Lewis studied physics at Clarkson College and graduated from Marist College with a degree in English Literature in 1964. He attended and graduated from law school at New York University, New York City in 1968, and in 1969 returned to practice law in his hometown, Poughkeepsie, later forming the firm, Lewis and Greer, P.C.
He is married (for 58 years) to Candace Jenks Lewis, together they have three daughters and eight grand-children.
