Joel Steinberg

Joel Steinberg (born May 25, 1941) is a disbarred New York criminal defense attorney who attracted international media attention when he was accused of murder and convicted of manslaughter in the November 1, 1987 beating and subsequent death of a six-year-old girl, Elizabeth ("Lisa"), whom he and his live-in partner Hedda Nussbaum had illegally adopted. Steinberg had reportedly been hired by a single mother named Michele Launders to locate a suitable adoptive family for Lisa, but he instead took the child home and raised her with Nussbaum. He never filed formal adoption papers and the child was not legally adopted.

Joel Steinberg was raised in the Bronx and Yonkers. He graduated from Fordham University in 1962. After graduation, Steinberg attended law school but dropped out in 1964 and joined the US Air Force in 1965. Following his military career, he finished law school and was admitted to the bar in New York without being required to take the bar exam, because he had taken a special program for military veterans.

Joel Steinberg shared a Greenwich Village, Manhattan apartment with Lisa, Mitchell (a younger child also illegally adopted), and his live-in partner Hedda Nussbaum. Steinberg was under the influence of crack cocaine when he hit Lisa on the head on November 1, 1987. After the attack, he left the apartment to party with friends; Hedda eventually dialed 911. After police arrived at the scene, Lisa was transported from the apartment to Saint Vincent's Hospital. The child remained in the hospital for three days and died after being removed from life support. In addition to Lisa's deadly assault, Mitchell and Nussbaum both showed signs of physical abuse at the hands of Steinberg, and Nussbaum's battered, unkempt appearance did much to fuel the media frenzy that accompanied the story of Lisa's death.

In exchange for testifying against Steinberg, Nussbaum was not prosecuted for events related to Lisa's death. Nussbaum was alone in the apartment with an unconscious and bleeding Lisa for over ten hours without seeking any medical attention for the girl. At Steinberg's twelve-week trial, his defense argued that Nussbaum's extensive injuries, which included severe damage to the face and permanent spinal damage, resulted from a consensual sadomasochistic relationship between the two defendants. Her attorneys claimed that Nussbaum's decision to stay with Steinberg even though she was a victim of domestic violence was a sign of battered woman syndrome.

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