Law careers led Harpur alumnae to follow their passion of helping others

From the beginning of her time here at Binghamton Linda Riefberg ‘81 knew her future was in law. For her the ever-changing duties interested her.

“When you’re a lawyer, you have a skill set and you learn a basic knowledge,” she said. “But it is a constantly changing job, you are never doing the same thing twice.”

Riefberg’s career from the public sector, to the private sector and then back to the public sector was driven by a simple goal: to work in an organization with a single mission that everyone shared. Heidi Goldstein ‘81 began her career at a small law firm representing foster care agencies against abusive and neglectful parents.

“I wanted to help the underserved have better lives,” she said. “To change the world and make it a better place for people who didn’t have a voice in society.”

The firm Goldstein was working for suffered a financial loss and she was laid off she said. After that experience she wanted a job that offered more security. So she moved onto a much larger and more established law firm, which began, as she puts it “the 30-year detour of my career.”

Riefberg had been following for some time the work of The Innocence Project, which uses DNA to help exonerate wrongly convicted prisoners, she said and found that their mission was something she could believe in. With her kids through college, downsizing from a home to an apartment, and the support of her husband she was able to pursue her passion.

Something she noticed right away—she no longer had to bring in new business, which allows her to focus on being a lawyer.

“When you work at a law firm you have a lot of responsibility to bring in business and to market yourself,” said Riefberg, whose duties now include making sure the organization follows the policies and procedures required of a non-profit. “I’m purely a lawyer now, I don’t have to bring in clients and be accountable as a revenue producer.”

Goldstein’s reintroduction into public sector work came when a new group, whose clients were all non- profit organizations, came to the firm she worked at. Her first case: representing a foster care agency. “I felt like I had come full circle,” she said. “While I loved the work I had been doing at the law firm, the opportunity to represent nonprofit organizations reminded me of the early days of my career and my desire to serve others.”

When asked to apply at Phoenix House, a non-profit that focuses on healing those with substance use disorders, she said she jumped at the chance. While the job is different than what she did at the law firm, Goldstein said it has its unique rewards.

“When I leave at the end of a long day I think about how many lives I helped save today,” she said. “That’s not something I was able to do before.”

Riefberg and Goldstein both state they could not have imagined where they would be today. Both following a passion that started decades ago.