Joseph Sommer is legal counsel at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He is an expert on payments systems law and has published a number of law review articles on the legal underpinnings of the monetary system. Sommer joined the New York Fed in September 1988 as a law clerk. He was promoted to positions of increasing responsibility in legal, and in November 1992 he was promoted to senior attorney.He holds an A.B. in physics from Brown University, a Ph.D. in chemistry from Columbia University and a J.D. from Yale Law School.