Co-founder of Gotham City Networking Company and managing partner of the New York law firm of Klein, Zelman, Rothermel & Dichter, a boutique law firm in New York specializing in labor employment and communications law, Fred Klein makes every connection worthwhile.

One evening in 1996, he attended a fellow colleague’s networking group, and from that moment, his life changed. By January 1997, he and Nancy Schess selected 10 people from their Rolodexes and started up Gotham City Networking Company.

What was at first a small social network for Mr. Klein and his colleagues has grown into a “kind of business fraternity” with chapters all over the world. Gotham City Network consists of more than 400 different companies and 20 networking groups divided by sector. Broadband Internet connections serve as a medium for “Gothamites” to communicate with ease, and have extended Gotham’s reach to businesses worldwide.

People prefer Gotham City Networking Company because “we aspire to be a family,” the 62-year-old Mr. Klein told The New York Sun. He takes pride in that because Gotham’s members are eager to help each other and are able to communicate effectively over the network.

“Gotham is like a magic wand, which with its synergy can do any thing,” he said yesterday. Though Gotham City Networking is undoubtedly about increasing business and making connections, it is also about making friends and having a good time. So whether it is at a co-ed networking softball game, or a night at the Friar’s Club, Fred Klein ensures that the members of the Network are fraternizing while making business connections effortlessly in their knickerbockers or suit and tie.

Like a true New Yorker, multitasking is an art for Mr. Klein, who has found several ways to incorporate his many lines of business. The Gotham City Networking Company serves as the marketing arm for Mr. Klein’s law firm as well. As a member of the only labor and employment law firm in the Gotham City Network, and one of formidable credibility, Mr. Klein has the advantage of offering his firm’s services to other businesses in the network. Group social functions are often held at the Friar’s Club in Manhattan, where Mr. Klein serves as the treasurers of the board of directors.

Mr. Klein attributes his success to “hard work, understanding the needs of others, returning phone calls on the first day, making sure that you deliver, and having highly competent colleagues and friends.” Mr. Klein has run 33 marathons with a personal record of 3 hours and 9 minutes. One could say that he’s stricken with luck in business, but he believes, in the words of Branch Rickey, that “luck is the residue of design.”