Who Is Ellen Sturm?

Facebook/Ellen Sturm Ellen Sturm pictured on her Facebook page. Ellen Sturm is a lawyer with Cellino & Barnes law firm and was Steve Barnes ‘ girlfriend. On October 2, Barnes’ private plane crashed with two fatalities en route from Manchester, New Hampshire, to Buffalo, New York, in the town of Corfu, New York.

Visiting Ellen’s is magic,” boasted namesake owner Ellen Hart Sturm, 80, the former New York City beauty queen whose idea to mix show tunes with classic diner fare made the eatery one of Midtown’s most popular tourist destinations. Pre-pandemic two-hour waits at the corner of Broadway and West 51st attested to its appeal.

The re-opening of Stardust is a sign that better days are ahead, said actress Brandi Massey, who began working at the diner in 2004 and went on to perform in Broadway hits “Wicked” and “The Color Purple.” “Ellen’s is a community within a community,” said Massey.

Sturm is seeking $4.74 million from Cellino and the firm — four times the original fee she is owed, the papers say. Sturm attorney Clifford Robert said his client “is a highly accomplished lawyer who will no longer tolerate being disrespected by Ross Cellino, Jr.”

Ellen Sturm is a lawyer with Cellino & Barnes law firm and was Steve Barnes‘ girlfriend.

In a 2020 feature on the law firm’s break-up, New York Magazine described Barnes as bringing Sturm into the law firm. A 2014 email from Ross Cellino to Steve Barnes was quoted in the article as reading:

On her Cellino & Barnes profile, Sturm says that the “resilient spirits” and “the courage to go on in the face of adversity” are the qualities she sees regularly in her clients. Sturm says, “I take very seriously my commitment to do absolutely the best job that I can for them.” A letter to the Buffalo News during the coverage of the break-up of Cellino & Barnes said that Sturm and Barnes had been together for “over a decade.”

According to Sturm’s profile on Cellino & Barnes’ website, she specializes in personal injury law. Sturm, 64, graduated from law school at the University of Buffalo in 2001 where she finished at the top of her class.

The crash comes just three months after Barnes and former partner Ross Cellino, Jr. finally agreed to the terms of splitting their firm — but before the pair opened their separate offices.

Who is Ellen Sturm?

Attorney Ellen Sturm — who’s been at the firm since 2009 and in a relationship with Barnes for over a decade — charges that Cellino is trying to “gain leverage against [Barnes] in the dissolution dispute, in a manner that is unseemly, perfidious, unethical, and wrong,” a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit filed late Tuesday says.

But Sturm says she regularly received the 10 percent bonus on her work in prior cases, which is laid out in her contract. And Cellino hadn’t taken issue with anyone receiving their fee ever before, the court documents allege.