Grunin Prize for Sustained Commitment

2025 marks the third year the center has awarded the Grunin Prize for Sustained Commitment.  This prize aims to honor lawyers who have demonstrated exceptional dedication to these ideals over their careers.

The Grunin Center for Law and Social Entrepreneurship is made possible through a generous endowment from NYU School of Law graduates Jay Grunin ’67 and Linda Kalmanowitz Grunin ’67, and the Jay and Linda Grunin Foundation. Jay and Linda have dedicated their philanthropic endeavors to investing in innovative projects that have measurable impacts creating meaningful, transformative change.

2025 Grunin Prize for Sustained Commitment Winner

Carl Valenstein, Partner, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP

The 2025 Grunin Prize for Sustained Commitment was awarded to Carl Valenstein. Mr. Valenstein is a partner in the Boston office of Morgan Lewis. He focuses his practice on domestic and international corporate and securities matters, mergers and acquisitions, project development, and transactional finance. He works extensively in a variety of industries, including the life sciences, telecom/electronics, renewable energy, and maritime industries, and has worked broadly in Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

For more than 30 years, Mr. Valenstein has provided legal assistance to microfinance institutions and assisted public charities, foundations, social enterprises and entrepreneurs, impact investment venture capital funds, and other impact investors. He co-chairs the Morgan Lewis ESG and Sustainability Initiative, which is a cross office and interdisciplinary group of Morgan Lewis lawyers engaged in ESG advisory and impact investment work for public and private companies and investment funds. He is a founding member of the Impact Investment Legal Working Group (IILWG), which holds annual conferences, including co-hosting with the Grunin Center at NYU Law the IILWG-Grunin Center Conference on Legal Issues in Social Entrepreneurship and Impact Investing - in the US and Beyond.

Mr. Valenstein is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Michigan Law School and NYU School of Law’s International Transactions Clinics (ITCs) focusing on impact investment. In conjunction with the Michigan Law School’s ITC, he represented Habitat in establishing MicroBuild, a $100 million dollar fund that expands housing microfinance lending and helps thousands of low-income families globally. The fund received the Overseas Private Investment Corporation’s 2016 Access to Finance Award and recognition by the Financial Times for Social Innovation.