New York City Bar Association Podcasts -NYC Bar

Host Tim Peterson of the Information Technology and Cyberlaw Committee interviews Dennis Dayman, the Chief Privacy and Security Officer of Return Path, on the evolution of privacy law and technology and what it means for the future of consumer privacy and electronic marketing efforts worldwide.

On February 28, 2019, a panel discussed issues around companion animals and transportation, including the use of service animals on public transportation, pets in ridesharing, and recent incidents in which pets have died during air travel.

Moderators:

Marissa Hight, Akerman LLP

Bari Wolf, Vernon & Ginsburg LLP

Speakers:

Erin Abrams, General Counsel, Via

Kleo King, Deputy Commissioner and General Counsel, Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities

Joel Lopez, Vice President, ASPCA Adoption Center

Evan Oshan, Oshan & Associates, P.C.

Sponsoring Committee:

Animal Law Committee, Christopher Wlach, Chair

Co-Sponsoring Committee

Transportation Committee, Sanford Balick, Chair

Disability Law Committee, John W. Egan, Chair

People live longer today than ever before; in fact, Americans over the age of 85 represent one of the fasting growing age groups in the country. This program features three researchers whose findings challenge the accepted views on growing older. Join us as John Leland, Amy Nathan and Paula Span share their findings and provide information on a topic that faces all of us.

Speakers:

John Leland, Author, “Happiness Is a Choice You Make: Lessons from a Year Among the Oldest Old”

Amy Nathan, Author, "Making Time for Making Music"

Paula Span, Columnist, The New York Times, “The New Old Age" and “Generation Grandparent”

Sponsoring Association Committee:

Senior Lawyers Committee, Barry M. Bloom, Chair

Cosponsoring Committee:

Legal Problems of the Aging Committee, Britt Burner, Chair

Meticulous Nazi records of Jews killed in the death camps identify fewer than half of the Holocaust's victims. When, where and how were the other victims killed? Father Patrick Desbois, a French Roman Catholic priest, has sought and found the answer to this question. As a young priest, Father Desbois visited a town in Ukraine where his grandfather, a French Resistance fighter, had been incarcerated by the Nazis. By speaking with village elders, he learned of the process by which the town's Jews had been rounded up, executed and buried in mass graves. His research established that this process had been repeated thousands of times throughout Eastern Europe. Father Desbois discussed his research and the continued effort to uncover genocidal practices around the world, in this Public Affairs Luncheon on February 12, 2019.

Speaker:

Father Patrick Desbois has devoted his life to the study of the Holocaust and other genocides. He is a founder of Yahad – in Unum (“Together in One”), a global NGO dedicated to discovering genocidal practices around the world and providing documented proof of crimes against humanity. His organization presents “Holocaust by Bullets” – Enhanced Teacher Training seminars to educators around the world. He has spent the last several years with his team gathering testimony from survivors of the Yazidi massacres in Iraq at the hands of ISIS.

Sponsoring Association Committee:

Senior Lawyers Committee, Barry M. Bloom, Chair

Public Affairs Luncheon, Frank Wagner, Chair

Cosponsoring Association Committee:

International Human Rights Committee, Lauren Melkus, Chair

On a daily basis, family and criminal courts depend on mandated domestic violence services for resolving cases of intimate partner violence. Thousands of defendants and respondents in our city are required to complete these services in order to have visits with their children or get back in their homes. Yet there is little evidence of the effectiveness of existing services and there continues to be a reliance on outdated services such as Batterers Accountability programs. New York City policymakers have been examining this issue and have developed a Blueprint for Abusive Partner Intervention. A report published in 2018, “Seeding Generations: New Strategies Towards Services for People who Abuse,” took a comprehensive look at this issue and the need for a new model of services. The report acknowledges that services to families also need to consider the trauma that those who harm have been through. This panel on January 17, 2019 served as an opportunity for policymakers to have a dialogue with family court and criminal court practitioners about the current and future state of domestic violence services.

Welcome:

Cecile Noel, Commissioner, Mayor’s Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence

Moderator:

Purvi Shah, Consultant, Seeding Generations

Speakers:

Albery Abreu, Abusive Partner Intervention Specialist, Children’s Aid Society

Tanya Apparicio, Deputy Chief, Domestic Violence Unit, NY County District Attorney’s Office

Ana Bermudez, Commissioner, New York City Department of Probation

Juliana Chereji, Family Defense Practice, Brooklyn Defenders Services

Bea Hanson, Executive Director, Domestic Violence Task Force, NYC Office of the Mayor

Quentin Walcott, Co-Executive Director of Connect

Sponsoring Association Committee:

Council on Children, Lauren Shapiro, Chair

Co-Sponsoring Association Committees:

Children & the Law Committee, Sara L. Hiltzik, Chair

Domestic Violence Committee, Amanda M. Beltz, Chair

Education & the Law Committee, Laura D. Barbieri, Chair

Family Court & Family Law Committee, Glenn Metsch-Ampel, Chair

On December 6, 2018, Juan Williams, the political analyst for Fox News, bestselling author, and civil rights expert addressed the Trump administration’s sweeping rollback of the civil rights movement at the City Bar's Public Affairs Luncheon. Donald Trump’s campaign pitch to African Americans was: “What the hell do you have to lose?” According to Juan, the answer is: Quite a lot, as it turns out. He believes that the Trump administration’s policies and intentions pose a threat to civil rights without precedent in modern America. Based on his observations of the current state of politics and race relations with insights from the long, and sometimes forgotten, history of the civil rights movement, as Juan asserts in his new book, knowing our past is essential if we are to understand our present, and shape our future.

Speaker:

Juan Williams has covered and written about American politics for four decades. He is currently a columnist for The Hill, and was a longtime writer and correspondent for The Washington Post and NPR. Juan is currently a cohost of Fox News Channel's roundtable debate show The Five, and makes regular appearances across the network, where he regularly challenges the orthodoxy of the network's conservative stalwarts. He is also the author of numerous books, including Eyes on the Prize, Thurgood Marshall, Enough, Muzzled, and We The People.

Sponsoring Association Committee:

Senior Lawyers Committee, Barry M. Bloom, Chair

Public Affairs Luncheon, Frank Wagner, Chair

On December 3, 2018, experts discussed the legal issues relating to the First Amendment and freedom of speech. Topics included the scope and limits of First Amendment protection for certain types of speech, whether by news and media outlets, on school campuses, via social media, or as part of public protests. The program covered the current state of the law and recent developments. With an eye toward contributing to the public understanding of this complex area of law, it focused on the legal issues and on identifying and addressing the areas where legal line-drawing either is fairly easy or remains difficult and uncertain.

Opening Remarks:

Roger Juan Maldonado, President, New York City Bar Association

Panel:

Alex Abdo, Senior Staff Attorney, Knight First Amendment Institute

Floyd Abrams, Senior Counsel, Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP

Daniel J. Kornstein, Partner, Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady LLP

Carmelyn P. Malalis, Chair & Commissioner, NYC Commission on Human Rights

Nadine Strossen, John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law, New York Law School

Moderator:

Jamal Greene, Dwight Professor of Law, Columbia Law School

Sponsoring:

New York City Bar Association

City Bar Justice Center

City Bar Office for Diversity & Inclusion

Co-Sponsoring Association Committees:

Civil Rights Committee, Philip Desgranges, Chair

Federal Courts Committee, Laura Grossfield Birger, Chair

Communications & Media Law Committee, Katherine M. Bolger, Chair

Legal History Committee, Daniel J. Kornstein, Chair

The presidential election first scheduled for 2016 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and then for 2017 never took place. The election is now scheduled to take place on December 23, 2018. The Prime Minister has said that President Kabila will not run again, and he will abide by the constitutional limits. The delayed elections spurred anti-Kabila marches and protests, led by laity of the Catholic Church and youth activists. The government has cracked down on this opposition, harassing, arbitrarily arresting, detaining, injuring, and killing protestors. Many still remain in detention despite increasing health problems. The panelists examined the way forward for the DRC and the role opposition leaders, youth activists, the Catholic Church, and duly-elected officials can play in strengthening civil society.

Speakers:

H.E. Ambassador François Nkuna Balumuene, The Democratic Republic of the Congo Ambassador to the United States--Invited

Tatiana Carayannis, Director of the Social Science Research Council’s Understanding Violent Conflict Research Initiative and convener of the DRC Affinity Group

Sasha Lezhnev, Deputy Director of Policy at the Enough Project

Kambale Musavuli, Human Rights Activist and Spokesperson for Friends of the Congo

Moderator:

Elizabeth Barad, Esq., International Law and Gender Consultant

Sponsoring Association Committee:

African Affairs Committee, Victoria Safran, Chair

Co-Sponsoring Association Committees:

United Nations Committee, Simon O’Connor, Chair

Council on International Affairs Committee, Michael D. Cooper, Chair

International Human Rights Committee, Lauren Melkus, Chair

Co-Sponsoring Organization:

Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice, Alexander Papachristou, Executive Director

Focused on New York City’s schools grades K-8, panelists on November 8, 2018 discussed the history of school segregation and integration efforts; diversity pilots and plans; school admission screens, G&T programs, and their potential for desegregation; accountability, legal constraints, and best practices. Whether you are an education advocate, parent, practitioner, public official, student, or concerned citizen, this exciting and thought-provoking conversation is packed with information you will want to know.

Speakers:

Matthew Gonzales, Director, School Diversity Project, New York Appleseed

Richard D. Kahlenberg, Senior Fellow, The Century Foundation

Brad Lander, Member, New York City Council

Emmy Liss, Chief of Staff, Div. of Early Childhood Educ. & Student Enrollment, NYCDOE

Dennis D. Parker, Director, Racial Justice Program, ACLU

Moderator:

Clara Hemphill, Founder and Editor, InsideSchools

Re-legalization of cannabis for general adult use in New York City has never been closer, but how ready is the most populous metropolitan area in the United States - and the country’s largest urban cannabis market for commercial manufacture, delivery, home cultivation and over-the-counter sale of cannabis? On November 1, 2018, the City Bar’s Drugs & the Law Committee held a panel discussion examining the legal and policy changes that will be necessary in order to make a safe and orderly transition from a criminal market to a viable regulated market.

Speakers:

Axel Bernabe, Assistant Counsel, Governor Cuomo for Health

Steven Epstein, Founding Partner, Barket, Epstein, and Kearon LLP

Jerome Levy, Partner, Duane Morris

Joseph Levey, Founding Partner, Helbraun & Levey

Donovan Richards, New York City Council Member

Preston Niblack, New York City Deputy Comptroller for Budget

Moderator:

Kristin Jordan, Chair, Cannabis Practice Group, Newman Ferrara LLP