Spiegler visited the Turkish museum where the reclaimed treasures were on display. He was accompanied by a Turkish official.

"He explained to the people watching that we had helped recover it. And it was a remarkable reaction of just patting us on the back, smiling and ushering us up to the front so that we could see it," says Spiegler. "It brought home the fact that this is what we do this for."

Christopher A. Marinello, general counsel for the Art Loss Register, a private clearinghouse for missing artwork, says Spiegler is uniquely suited for this delicate work.

"It's Howard's gentle manner that really is a benchmark for young attorneys entering into art law," says Marinello. "I mean art law is different. You've got different personalities, you've got families that have suffered in the Holocaust. And the TV model of the obnoxious New York City lawyer just doesn't work in the art world.

Bounty hunters?

Critics have called Spiegler and his clients "bounty hunters." Some museum officials have argued that these stolen artifacts should remain in the museums where they can enrich the world. Yet Spiegler says what's lost in that argument is justice.

Howard Spiegler addresses colleagues at the recent conference of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

"Let us not forget that these artworks are being recovered for the heirs of their true owners. They were taken away from them by the murderers of the Third Reich, often in the course of carrying out the Final Solution (Hitler's ethnic genocide). Who, except the families of these owners, have the right to decide what to do with their property?"