Thank you to all of our generous supporters and to everyone who attended our 2017 Benefit Awards Dinner on June 7th at Chelsea Piers.  

The night was a moving one with our remarkable honorees sharing inspiring stories of their work to achieve justice. They included Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs Commissioner Nisha Agarwal, whose award was presented by Richard Buery, Deputy Mayor For Strategic Policy Initiatives; Quinn Emanuel’s Steve Edwards, whose award was presented by NCLEJ Executive Director Marc Cohan; and Bayer’s Head of Global Litigation Malini Moorthy, whose award was presented by philanthropist and activist Eva Haller. Board Vice Chair and Dinner Committee Chair Doug Curtis served as the evening's emcee. 

If you were unable to attend the dinner, but would like to support the event, click here. A copy of the dinner journal can be seen here.

NCLEJ Senior Attorney Claudia Wilner has been recognized for her successful litigation ending a fraudulent debt collection scheme. Public Justice has named Claudia a finalist for their Trial Lawyer of the Year Award for her work in the landmark case, Sykes v. Mel S. Harris & Associates LLC. The federal class action litigation reached settlement last year, with defendants paying nearly $60 million to low-income people whose bank accounts were seized or wages garnished, and extinguishing more than $1 billion in alleged debt. As an additional component of the settlement, the New York State courts vacated nearly 200,000 fraudulently-obtained default judgments. 
 
Congratulations to Claudia and her co-counsel Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady LLP, MFY Legal Services, and the New Economy Project.
 

Congratulations to former NCLEJ Executive Director Henry A. Freedman who was elected to the organization’s Board of Directors on June 8th. Henry retired in 2014 after leading NCLEJ for 43 years. Since then, he’s stayed involved with NCLEJ, serves as an uncompensated hearing officer for the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, participates in a variety of other volunteer activities, and enjoys spending time with six grandchildren ages 8 to 17. Upon his retirement, NCLEJ launched the Freedman Fund for Due Process to honor and carry on his life’s work.

Executive Director Marc Cohan said, “We are thrilled beyond words that Henry Freedman will again officially be part of NCLEJ. He is an amazing lawyer, teacher, advocate, and friend who has touched countless lives throughout his professional career.”
 

NCLEJ is pleased to welcome our newest volunteer, Yakov Medinets. Yakov has three years of litigation experience as a Law Clerk at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, where his work included multi-jurisdictional corporate litigation and numerous pro-bono litigation matters. Yakov received his JD from the University of Virginia School of Law in 2014 and received his BA from the University of Virginia in 2010.