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Association in the News
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Eastern District Judge Jack B. Weinstein reads the inscription on one of the New York City Bar Association’s Thurgood Marshall Awards for Capital Representation at a ceremony Monday at the bar group’s headquarters. More than 200 attorneys and some 30 law firms that have provided significant assistance in capital cases were honored with the awards, which were first given in 1998. This year marks only the second time the honors were given. Judge Weinstein gave the evening’s keynote address.
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US District Court Judge and longtime Brooklynite Jack Weinstein was presented with the Thurgood Marshall Award, which is named after the iconic judge best known for his victory in the monumental school-segregation case, Brown v. Board of Education.
The Thurgood Marshall award ceremony was held at the New York City Bar Association on 44th Street in Manhattan. Approximately 200 people attended the event, filling the landmark meeting hall.
The ceremony was held in honor of Judge Weinstein, who has dedicated his life and career to promoting and practicing the importance of free-thinking and independence in the United States judicial system.
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The Leader of the Lawyers’ Revolt in Pakistan last year that challenged President Musharraf’s power, Aitzaz Ahsan, criticized the Bush administration for not speaking out against Mr. Musharraf’s stance toward the judiciary in Pakistan.
Last November, Mr. Musharraf fired the 17-member Supreme Court of Pakistan, putting some members, including its chief justice, under house arrest. Speaking at the New York City Bar Association, Mr. Ahsan said there was “not a word or whimper of concern” from America about the school-age children of the chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who were also imprisoned at home behind barbed wire.
In his speech, Mr. Ahsan said the security of an independent judiciary in Pakistan was an important bulwark against “Talibanization” there. A failure of the civil justice system in Pakistan, Mr. Ahsan warned, could turn people toward extremists willing to provide “rough justice.”
The New York Sun
July 2nd, 2008
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The Editor of the Metropolitan Corporate Counsel interviews Patricia M. Hynes, newly elected President of the New York City Bar Association and Senior Counsel at Allen & Overy LLP about her record of public service and her hopes for the Bar under her leadership.
A major professional milestone for Ms. Hynes is her service as an Assistant US Attorney in the United State’s Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan from 1967 to 1982. “Working in a prosecutor’s office whose clients were the United States government and its agencies and doing both civil cases and criminal prosecutions was a wonderful experience professionally,” she says.
During her presidency, Ms. Hynes hopes to “promote access to justice in keeping with the long history of the Bar Association” by “enlarging upon pro bono activities of the City Bar Justice Center and also by supporting the funding efforts for the betterment of the justice system.”
The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel
July 2008
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Following on the heels of Gov. David Paterson’s order for state agencies to recognize same-sex marriages, some New York couples are rushing to head down the aisle in California, where they can legally wed.
“Same-sex couples have realized a very important advance in their legal status as married couples in New York,” said Allen A. Drexel, a family law attorney and a co-chairperson of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Rights Committee of the New York City Bar Association.
Drexel co-edited “1,324 Reasons for Marriage Equality”, a New York City Bar Association report that is cited in the governor’s executive order. The bar report identifies more than 1,000 state policies and regulations that could change under the agency-spanning directive.
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The National Law Journal named Preeta D. Bansal as one of the fifty most influential minority lawyers in America on May 26th. Bansal is a member of the National Advisory Council of the North American South Asian Bar Association (NASABA).
Bansal heads the appellate litigation practice at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP in New York. She recently won one of the largest constitutional takings cases at the United States Appeals Court for the Second Circuit, and currently serves as a policy advisor to Senator Barack Obama. She also serves on the board of numerous public service and governmental organizations, including the National Women’s Law Center, New York City Campaign Finance Board, and the New York City Bar Justice Center.
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The Lawyers’ Orchestra of the New York City Bar Association, founded in 1996 by lawyer and oboist David Greenwald, played its last concert on June 21st at Fordham University. The orchestra has performed three major concerts a year, sponsored monthly Friday evening chamber music performances at the City Bar, and even dropped its hourly fees to give free concerts to residents at nursing homes and hospitals around the city.
Given the pressure cooker of its members’ work day, the orchestra has also been a creative outlet for lawyers happy to trade their legal briefs for Bach, memoranda for Mozart.
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Patricia
M. Hynes, who was set last night to become
the 63rd president of the New York City Bar
Association, brings to her new post a long
commitment to public service.
She
has served on numerous boards and commissions
over the past two decades. With respect to
judicial nominations alone, she has served
on committees that screen candidates for mayoral
appointments in New York City; federal appointments
throughout the nation, including the U.S. Supreme
Court, and magistrate judges in the Southern
District.
New York Law Journal
May 29,
2008
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The Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the
City Bar Justice Center are joining forces
to help New Yorkers in danger of losing their
homes to foreclosure.
The two organizations today announced the formation
of the Lawyers’ Foreclosure Intervention
Network, a pro bono pilot program that will
marshal the resources of the city’s legal
community to assist residents facing foreclosure.
Crain’s New York Business
May 27, 2008
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“[J]udges haven’t received raises
in nearly a decade, while the cost of living
has risen at least 30 percent,” said
Kamins, the president of the New York City
bar association and former president of the
Kings County Criminal Bar Association. “[O]n
the day a law school graduate is admitted to
the bar and joins a large firm, that ... person
makes a salary in excess of what is made by
the chief judge of the state.”
May 1, 2008
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
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About
700 lawyers rallied Tuesday afternoon in front
of New York Supreme Court in Manhattan to show
support for lawyers and judges in Pakistan
battling for the restoration of the rule of
law.
Addressing
the throng that poured down the courthouse
steps and spilled onto the sidewalk, Barry
Kamins, president of the New York City Bar
Association, said the rally was called "to
embolden" the Pakistani lawyers and judges
who have been "physically manning barricades
and trying to face down an entire army."
New York Law Journal
November 14, 2007
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Lawyers in Pakistan have found an ally in
their fight for the restoration of the judiciary
- the New York City and State Bar Associations
- among the largest, oldest and most prestigious
associations of lawyers in the United States.
They are extremely busy and charge by the hour
but hundreds of lawyers from law firms across
Manhattan took time out to gather on the steps
of the New York County Courthouse to protest
the arrest and detention of thousands of lawyers
and judges under emergency rule in Pakistan.
New Delhi Television
November 14, 2007
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Today, the New York City Bar presented a letter
to Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the president of
Pakistan, urging him to reverse his decision
to fire justices of the Supreme Court, impose
emergency rule, crack down on protesters and
detain lawyers and other activists without
charges.
New York Times
November 7, 2007
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The New York City Bar Association is pushing
the city council to ease a police code that
defines any gathering of 50 or more people
as a "parade" requiring a permit
from the police department.
"The police will inevitably engage in
a wide degree of selective and discretionary
enforcement, which has the very real potential
for becoming a means for suppressing particular
points of view," the group's president,
Barry Kamins, warned in the letter to Council
Speaker Christine Quinn.
New York Sun
October 19, 2007
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To the Editor:
Members of the bar were appalled by the suggestion of merit pay for judges based upon holdings in cases, in two recent Sun editorials ["Judge Sues for a Raise," April 11, 2008, and "Overpaid Judges," May 2, 2008].
One of the oldest, most established principles in American law is the doctrine of judicial independence. That is, judges ought to decide cases free from the interference of politics and public opinion, and without worry of incurring sanctions for their decisions.
Merit pay for judges depending on the popularity of their decisions would be the beginning of the end of judicial independence.
As former chief justice Earl Warren wrote, it is in the public's interest "that the judges should be at liberty to exercise their functions with independence and without fear of consequences."
The New York City Bar Association supports judicial pay increases on the premise that fair salaries are necessary to attract and retain a qualified and dedicated judiciary. Judicial independence is not for sale.
Barry Kamins,
President
New York City Bar Association
The New York Sun
May 8, 2008 |
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[The U.S. Department of Justice] accuses lawyers of provoking unrest among the detainees and threatening camp security.Barry M. Kamins, the bar group’s president, deemed it an unjust insult that could not be taken lying down. His is one of the oldest and largest associations of lawyers in the country, with more than 23,000 members...
"Guantanamo has developed into a symbol of abuse, mistreatment and injustice in the eyes of the entire world," Mr. Kamins said. "The practices tolerated there have done incalculable damage to the reputation of the United States as an advocate of fundamental justice and the rule of law."
The New York Times
May 11, 2007
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Our strongly held view is that the best way to select justices–and all judges–is through a commission–based appointment system. We believe this provides the highest–quality judiciary. We recognize that this change would require a constitutional amendment, and at least in the interim the court decision must be addressed. We would much prefer a reformed judicial convention system to open primaries, which have the worst fund–raising implications.
Barry Kamins, President
New York City Bar Association
Crain's New York Business
January 22, 2007
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Barry Kamins is New York’s latest legatee and legend...The fact that he’s become the 62nd president of a prestigious organization whose members include 23,000 of the city’s 75,000 lawyers isn’t what’s made him a legend. Rather, it’s the fact that in the 136–year history of the bar association — the largest of any city in America — there has never been a president from outside Manhattan until Mr. Kamins came along...
The New York Sun
July 12, 2006
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Last month, the New York City Bar published a policy paper stating that sex offender civil commitment laws could easily be abused and that "misplaced fears" could keep sex offenders incarcerated for years after their sentence and could represent a threat to civil liberties.
The New York Times
February 6, 2006
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Last
week’s Federal Court ruling, which
struck down as unconstitutional New York’s
decades-old system of electing state Supreme
Court justices, marked the culmination of more
than a century of calls to break the stranglehold
of party bosses over our state courts. Reformers
should take a well-deserved bow – and
then start running for office.There may never
be a better chance than right now to put a
crop of honest, independent men and women on
the bench. Federal Judge John Gleeson has ordered
open party primaries for Supreme Court, the
state’s general trial
court. Gleeson also abolished judicial conventions,
which were nothing more than rubber stamps
on the patronage picks of county bosses …
For New York, that’s revolutionary. In 1847, our state became the second
(after Mississippi) to choose judges by popular vote – but the elections
quickly became bogged down in political corruption. By 1870, according to a history
of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, “the decline of
quality on the bench under the elective system and the necessity for reversing
this trend had been among the chief reasons for founding the Association.”
Daily News
January 31, 2006
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For the first time in many years, the New
York City Bar Association looks ahead to the
2006 legislative session with optimism, albeit
a cautious one. From Assembly rules reform,
to budget, public authorities and lobbying
reform in 2005, change toward a better government
is a real possibility … Whether this
is a sign of a new Albany where productivity
and reform rule the day, or just a lucky break
fueled by last year’s intense public
pressure to fix Albany, remains to be seen
[said Jayne Bigelsen, director of Communications
and Public Affairs at the New York City Bar
Association].
New York Law Journal
January 9, 2006
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The City Bar Justice Center received the Distinguished
Public Service Award from the American Immigration
Law Foundation at the group’s Annual
Achievement Awards Ceremony at the Marriott
Marquis on Thursday.
New York Law Journal
December 14, 2005
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Thirty of the 55 large Manhattan law firms
asked by the New York City Bar Association
to endorse its aspirational “Statement
of Pro Bono Principles” did so yesterday.
Included in the statement is a pledge that
signatory firms perform 50 or more hours per
lawyer per year. A “substantial majority” of
those hours should be in the cause of civil
legal help for the poor – or about 30
hours, said Bettina B. Plevan, city bar president.
New York Law Journal
November 30, 2005
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Fresh from his big win on Tuesday, Mayor Bloomberg
is launching a new push aimed at changing the
way the city elects most judges – a secretive
process largely controlled by party bosses
and long riddled by scandal … It’s
not the first time Bloomberg has called for
changing the city’s arcane method of
electing judges. He first did so in May 2003
in a speech before the Association of the Bar
of the City of New York, and more recently
during his campaign.
Daily News
November 13, 2005
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As Scott Horton [Chair, International Law
Committee, New York City Bar Association] reminded
us on Amy Goodman’s syndicated program, Democracy
Now!, the vice president, back in 2002, “was
making the rounds of the talk shows and talking
about the need to use ‘the dark arts.’ He
was clearly advocating torture, and he was
advocating it within the CIA and later the
Defense Department.”
Nat Hentoff
The Village Voice
November 11, 2005
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As the Brooklyn district attorney looks into
whether judges have paid to get seats on the
bench, nine judicial candidates in Brooklyn
have been refused the coveted seal of approval
from the New York City Bar Association … The
bar association gives only “approved” and “not
approved” designations after candidates
submit questionnaires, writing samples, references,
and a full record of their job history. In
addition, a special committee conducts interviews
with the would-be judges.
The New York Sun
November 1, 2005 |
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After 135 years, the Association of the Bar of
the City of New York is sprucing up its public
identity to make it more contemporary and less
prone to mangling in the popular press. [Some
of the most common misidentifications were as “The
New York State Bar” or the “New York
Bar.”]
Though it will retain its formal name, the association started in June to identify
itself in its public communications as the “New York City Bar,” said
Barbara Berger Opotowsky, executive director of the 23,000-member group …
Also, Ms. Opotowsky said,
the city bar’s public name has been changed in
tandem with that of its fund-raising arm, the City Bar Fund, [now known as the
City Bar Justice Center] to cement the connection between the two organizations
in the public’s mind.
New York Law Journal
September 23, 2005 |
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When friends and colleagues gathered three years
ago at a memorial service for Cyrus R. Vance … cabinet
secretary under three U.S. presidents … it
seemed logical to all that he should become the
namesake of one of the most ambitious and far-reaching
agendas ever undertaken by the Association of
the Bar of the City of New York … the Cyrus
R. Vance Center for International Justice – an
opportunity for button-down New York lawyers at
white shoe firms to engage in social justice and
help promote legal reform in emerging democracies.
New York Law Journal
August 12, 2005 |
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A provision of the USA Patriot Act that allows
the FBI to collect personal information from institutions
without a warrant is unconstitutional, the New
York City Bar said yesterday in an amicus brief
filed in the Manhattan U.S. Court of Appeals.
The association says “National Security
Letters” that demand customer information
from Internet providers, universities and libraries
for terror investigations lack proper judicial
oversight.
amNewYork
August 5, 2005 |
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At the Legal Referral Service run by the Association
of the Bar of the City of New York, director Allen
Charne says he and his staff get 500 phone calls
a day from people looking for a lawyer … His
staff screens each lawyer before adding the lawyer
to its referral list for a given legal specialty.
Charne requires lawyers to submit proof of experience
in their areas of law, submit work samples and
be questioned by a panel of judges and lawyers.
Once his staff approves a lawyer for the referral
panel, they check the lawyer’s legal standing
annually and ask each referred client to complete
a satisfaction survey.
New York Magazine
August 1, 2005 |
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A major statistical report profiling the demographics
of the metropolitan legal community will be presented
to 82 participating firms on Monday during the
second annual diversity symposium of the Association
of the Bar of the City of New York … That
so many New York law firms were signatories to
the city bar study – 82 of 86 invited to
participate – was evidence of a commitment
to dramatic change, according to Edwin Bowman,
diversity manager at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.
The 82 law firms employed 16,936 attorneys in
2004. “I’ve never seen a survey with
that high a response rate,” said Mr. Bowman. “People
are interested and taking it seriously, and they
want to be a part of anything that seems productive
and constructive.”
New York Law Journal
June 3, 2005 |
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On September 17, 1987, I was privileged to
be in the audience at the Association of the
Bar of the City of New York when Justice William
Brennan, who had become the conscience of the
Bill of Rights on the high court, gave the
42nd Annual Benjamin N. Cardozo Lecture.
That lecture, still available in the archives
of the Association of the Bar of this city,
should be read by members of Congress and every
law student and law professor in the country—as
well as by every judge, from local housing
and family courts to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Titled “Reason, Passion, and ‘The
Progress of the Law,’ ” Brennan’s
emphasis on what he called “the human
reality of the judicial process” is even
more vital now that the Rehnquist Supreme Court
has prioritized economic rights and the rights
of individual states over the rights and liberties
of individual Americans throughout the country.
Nat Hentoff
The Village Voice
May 11, 2005
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Several
groups, including the Association of the Bar
of the City of New York …, have written
to Mr. Putin and the Russian prosecutor general’s
office demanding that Ms. Bakhmina [a corporate
attorney for the Russian oil company, Yukos]
be released and put under house arrest. “It
wasn’t only denial of due process” that
prompted the New York City bar association to
write on her behalf, said Martin S. Flaherty,
chairman of the group’s committee on international
human rights and a professor at Fordham Law School,
in a telephone interview. “We understand
she was also denied medical treatment and roughed
up in prison.”
The New York Times
March 29, 2005 |
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Eight senior officers from the Office of
the Judge Advocate General – the highest military
legal authority – sounded an alarm in 2003
in a series of secret meetings with the New York
City Bar Association. The career military lawyers
complained that the Pentagon had sidelined them
because they supported Geneva Convention protections
for American prisoners. Retired Rear Adm. John
Hutson, judge advocate general from 1997-2000,
blames the decision to ignore the Geneva Conventions
for “the kind of chaos we’ve seen.”
Newsday
January 13, 2005 |
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As a result of New York’s obsolete divorce
law, families suffer, children are permanently
scarred, and abusive marriages are encouraged … Fortunately,
the city and state bar associations are backing
legislation in Albany to change to a no-fault
model. While New York State legislators are mostly
known for what they do not do – get a state
budget passed, control Medicaid costs, work across
party lines – now they have an opportunity
to agree on helping couples disagree, and divorce,
with dignity.
New York Observer
December 13, 2004 |
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Matrimonial lawyers, bar associations and judges
are pushing to have the [divorce] law changed,
saying it is archaic and heightens hostilities
between spouses, which particularly hurts children.
Both the New York State Bar Association and the
city bar are backing a legislative change in
Albany to add no-fault grounds, and several powerful
legislators appear to be receptive. “Even
Chile, one of the most Catholic countries in
the world, has no-fault divorce now,” said
Harold A. Mayerson, a Manhattan divorce lawyer
and chairman of the committee on matrimonial
law at the Association of the Bar of the City
of New York.
The New York Times
November 30, 2004 |
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Many legal immigrants take plea settlements without
realizing accepting certain sentences for even
seemingly minor crimes could get them deported … The
Association of the Bar of the City of New York
criticized the law in a report last spring. “Without
a warning, many non-citizen defendants plead
guilty to lesser New York offenses unaware
of these potential immigration consequences,” the
report found … “The interests
of justice require a warning mechanism that
puts the non-citizen defendant on notice, so
that he may make an informed choice as to whether,
and to what, to plead guilty.”
The New York Sun
November 16, 2004
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The New York Bar Association, in a statement,
said current U.S. regulations enacted under
the Convention Against Torture prohibit deporting
any individual to a country where “more
likely than not” the person will be tortured.
A person can be deported only after a finding
that torture is no longer likely. By contrast,
the bar association said, the new bill would
actually “mandate deportation of such
an individual to a country even if it is certain
that [he] would be tortured there.” The
provision amounts to “a tacit approval
of torture,” the New York Bar Association
said, and “is particularly shocking
in the aftermath of the recent revelations
of torture by U.S. personnel in Iraq.”
Newsweek
October 6, 2004
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In 2003, Rumsfeld’s apparent disregard
for the requirements of the Geneva Conventions
while carrying out the war on terror had led
a group of senior military legal officers from
the Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAG)
to pay two surprise visits within five months
to Scott Horton, who was then chairman of the
New York City Bar Association’s Committee
on International Human Rights. “They wanted
us to challenge the Bush Administration about
its standards for detentions and interrogation,” Horton
told me…The message was that conditions
are ripe for abuse, and it’s going to occur…“They
said there was an atmosphere of legal ambiguity
being created as a result of a policy decision
at the highest levels in the Pentagon. The JAG
officers were being cut out of the policy formulation
process.”
The New Yorker
May 24, 2004
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