I am honored to have been sworn in as NYWBA President at our Annual Awards and Installation Dinner held on June 9, 2025. Thank you to Past Presidents Virginia LoPreto and Jennifer Brown DeBlasi, Board Member Olivia Lee, and Elizabeth Bass for planning another phenomenal dinner. Congratulations to the deserving recipients of the President’s Special Award, each of whom represents one of the four pillars of our organization: U.S. Representative Carolyn B. Maloney–equal rights under the law; Hon. Betty Weinberg Ellerin–advancing the careers of women in the law; Planned Parenthood of Greater New York–reproductive freedom; and Safe Horizon–empowering survivors.

This summer, NYWBA continued carrying on its work and time-honored traditions. It did so amidst nearly daily challenges to the very concept upon which NYWBA and our sister affinity bar organizations were founded: the value of diversity and inclusion, and the need for affinity bars for marginalized groups whose voices were not being heard.

We continued our advocacy for legislation that affects our members and the issues they care deeply about, through our umbrella organization, the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York (WBASNY). Following advocacy by WBASNY and others, in June, the New York State legislature passed two critical laws: the Medical Aid in Dying Act, which protects the rights of terminally ill patients to make end-of-life decisions, while safeguarding against abuses; and the Grieving Families Act, which modernizes New York’s wrongful death statute to measure the value of a life lost in a more equitable and less discriminatory manner. Both bills are pending signature by Governor Hochul, and we will continue to advocate for these bills to be signed and become law in New York.

We continued presenting innovative CLE programs at no cost to our members, including a joint CLE and Networking Event on “Effective Witness Communication”; and an informative program on “Estate and Trust Management and Mismanagement”, organized by our Trusts & Estates Committee. Our committees are hard at work planning more CLE programs for the fall, including in person events. Stay tuned for CLEs on civility in the profession, QDROs and the Child Parent Security Act.

We continued collaborating with other bar associations, the courts and court-affiliated organizations and committees to present unique programs by co-sponsoring: a well-attended and well-received program on “Getting Your Civil Case Settled in Court-Ordered Mediation”, organized by NYWBA members Hon. Suzanne Adams, Tania Pagan, Co-Chair of our Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee, and Michelle Kern-Rappy, former co-chair of that committee; in honor of Juneteenth, an engaging discussion with Harvard Professor & Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed, who discussed her groundbreaking book “On Juneteenth,” with NY1 Journalist Cheryl Wills; and the New York City Civil Courts’ “Mental Health Awareness Hour: Strategies for Managing Anxiety, Stress and Grieving”. We look forward to co-sponsoring the Caren Aronowitz Unity in Diversity Day on September 19, 2025, at 12:30 pm, a joyful celebration of diversity that is held in the beautiful rotunda of 60 Centre Street.

We continued presenting unique and inspiring programs that have become our signature and that represent us at our best. This year’s “Martha E. Gifford Summer Program: What It’s Really Like to Practice Law as a Woman” was organized by Past Presidents Martha E. Gifford (also a WBASNY Past President) and Hon. Lisa A. Sokoloff, by Officers Hon. Crystal Villaseñor and Melissa Glassman, and by Board Member Ernestine Mings, who also moderated the panel discussion. The distinguished panelists Christina Chelliah, Zila Acosta Grimes, Melissa Glassman, and Sedalia Jones-Kennelly, spoke about their paths to where they are now, discussing their challenges and how they rose above them and offering advice on what worked for them. When I spoke to students and young lawyers at the post-discussion reception, they were grateful to have attended and spoke of feeling inspired and about never having attended a program quite like this one.

We continued building on the work of our predecessors to generate and launch new programs. Erika Calderon and Vlad Frants, Co-Chairs of the newly created Student Subcommittee of the Mentoring Committee, coached and organized a mock trial for fifth grade students and are busy organizing future events for students to learn about and get involved in the practice of law.

We continued giving back to the community. This year’s silent auction at the Annual Dinner raised monies to again benefit the New York Women’s Bar Foundation, our sister charity organization, which funds numerous important causes, including fellowships that allow law students to provide services to domestic violence survivors and others in need of legal services. And we will continue giving back in the Fall, including through our Period Poverty Drive, conceived by Virginia LoPreto, at our upcoming membership reception, which collects feminine hygiene products and gift cards for their purchase for those in need. We hope that you also will join us for the City Harvest Mobile Market Volunteer Project the morning of September 27 at the Washington Heights Mobile Market to help set up and distribute fresh produce to eligible market goers. Thanks to the efforts of Melissa Glassman, this will be NYWBA’s first year participating in this impactful volunteer initiative.

Finally, we continued training our future leaders, both at WBASNY’s leadership training held in July in Tarrytown, NY, which I attended together with Vice President Vivian Drohan, and in NYWBA’s trainings for our committee chairs and for NYWBA delegates/representatives to WBASNY and its committees. Thank you to all who participated, and to the committee chairs and delegates to WBASNY, who are the backbone of our organization. Welcome to the new committee chairs and thank you for your service!

I encourage each of you to look over our list of committees and become active in a committee that interests you: attend a meeting or program, email the committee chairs, or write an article for our newsletter about a topic of interest. I encourage all our members to ensure their NYWBA membership is up to date to continue to enjoy all the benefits of NYWBA membership and work with us to advance the status of women and children in society and in the profession. Our membership year runs from June 1 to May 31, which means that all NYWBA memberships ended on May 31, 2025, with one exception: new (not renewing) members who joined NYWBA for the first time between February 1 and May 31, 2025. If you have not renewed your membership in the past few months, please do so as soon as possible!

On that note, please join us on September 29 at 6 pm at the offices of our gracious hosts, Blank Rome, for our annual membership cocktail reception, which is complimentary for all attendees and is a wonderful opportunity to meet our Officers, Board, and other members; to learn more about our organization and its committees and programs; and to mingle with good food, drink and company. We hope that you will not only attend but also consider bringing a colleague who would like to learn more about us and potentially join our ranks.

Until next month…

Lissett Costa Ferreira