New York City Bar Association - Committees on Governmental Affairs

A story of artificial intelligence, fabricated precedent, and a litigation gone awry that made cringeworthy headlines even outside the legal world. In Mata v. Avianca a lawyer submitted a brief in federal court citing precedent that ChatGPT had spun out of thin air. Three members of the City Bar Working Group on Judicial Administration and Artificial Intelligence break down how it happened and what we can learn about the use of artificial intelligence in courts. Tune in to hear Harut Minasian, Richard Hong and Stuart Levi discuss: • How did the judge in the case deal with the fact pattern that emerged and how were the lawyers in question held accountable for their actions? • Is there now a greater duty of oversight for lawyers in the new AI context? • When is AI-generated material an aid for human work and when is it a source? • How should lawyers responsibly disclose their use of AI tools to the court? • What rules are judges around the country making about the disclosure of AI tools used in their courtro

Aliza Shatzman is President and Founder of the Legal Accountability Project, a nonprofit aimed at extending support and resources to law clerks to ensure that they have a positive clerkship experience. Aliza talks about the mistreatment that she experienced as a law clerk. Her experience led her to discover the shocking lack of labor protections for clerks and the enormous power disparity between clerks and judges. Aliza was ultimately inspired to take on the deeply entrenched status quo in the clerking system. Tune in to hear about: • The power dynamic that exists today which gives judges the power to mistreat clerks and potentially derail their clerks’ careers • How law schools and their clerkship offices have been complicit in protecting bad actors and withholding information about bad judges from clerkship applicants • How Aliza has improved accountability for judges and raised awareness in the community of law clerks • What law clerks experiencing mistreatment can do to get help • What changes need to b

A brand new professional development podcast from the City Bar where we talk with lawyers about seizing opportunities, learning lessons the hard way, and about what makes them tick. Search for the This Lawyer's Life feed wherever you listen and subscribe! Gregory Binstock, City Bar Director of Professional Development, sits down with Ellen Holloman, a Partner in Cadwalader’s Global Litigation Group. Tune in to learn more about: • How learning flows both ways in Ellen’s mentor/mentee relationship • How leaders should approach lessons in DEI that come from a new generation of attorneys who are at the bottom of the firm hierarchy • How Ellen has navigated unsupportive encounters while seeking supportive spaces • How DEI contributes to winning litigation • How Ellen makes pro bono and service core elements of her career

Heather Hatcher is Chair of the City Bar’s Health Law Committee and a public health policy advocate. Roland Trope is a Partner at Trope and Schramm LLP and an Adjunct Professor in the Departments of Law and of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Heather and Roland interviewed Anthony E. Davis, Of Counsel at Clyde and Co. US and an international expert on professional responsibility. They discuss the transformations that AI tools will make to legal services, and they consider the challenges to evaluating and deploying those tools on behalf of the client. • How will AI tools change the landscape of legal services? • How can lawyers and law firms evaluate AI tools that purport to be applicable to individual use cases? • What are the risks of using AI tools for legal services? • How much technological expertise do lawyers need to have? • Who is liable for mistakes made by AI tools? • What are the ethical risks for lawyers using AI tools? This interview was rec

Ankura Consulting Group is a management consulting firm with over two thousand employees advising corporations in various industries and sectors e.g. cybersecurity, construction, litigation and human resources. Shawn Miles' and Patricia Rodriguez’s social-impact team helps companies ask themselves difficult questions about their own environments and values so that they can make sure that their people feel accepted, welcome and able to show up as themselves. Patricia and Shawn speak about being intentional with Belonging, about building strategies and spaces for people to be honest and sometimes uncomfortable. They helped us understand the ways in which building psychological safety to get things wrong can be tantamount to building psychological safety to really try and get things right. The Building Belonging crew carries this idea into a discussion about how to persevere in the face of an “anti-woke” movement that seeks to co-opt and undermine DEIB ideals. Tanya, Angie and Mary Ellen talk with Shawn and P

Jerome Walker, Lorraine McGowen and Edward So are Co-Chairs of a new City Bar Task Force on Digital Technologies. They introduce the Task Force, its objectives, its work so far, and its vision for the future.

Justice Rolando Acosta shares his story of growing up in the Dominican Republic and coming to New York at 14, finding opportunities by excelling academically and on the baseball field, and choosing the law and going to work at Legal Aid as a way of paying back the help that had been given to his family. Justice Acosta and his daughter Zila Acosta-Grimes compare notes on their upbringing and their privileges, and how they have learned to use privilege as power. Justice Acosta remembers for us his time building the Dominican community in Washington Heights and Inwood by building up social service infrastructure like Alianza Dominicana and Community Association of Progressive Dominicans alongside other community leaders like Adriano Espaillat and Dr. Raphael Lantigua. Justice Acosta also shares insights about the challenges of making change happen at the institutional level, delving into his own efforts to modernize the Appellate Division First Department while he was Presiding Justice. Justice Acosta tal

In this episode: Enforcing Orders to Correct, the fourth episode in our series on Housing Part Proceedings and the Reality of Housing Court. Agata Rumprecht-Behrens, a court attorney currently assigned to the HP part in Queens housing court, moderates a panel discussion with Vijay Kitson, a partner at Hertz, Cherson Rosenthal specializing in landlord-tenant trial advocacy; Rachel Nager, a tenant attorney and advocate representing tenants in housing court; Paul Gdanski, a supervising attorney in the tenant anti-harassment unit at HPD; and Judge Shorab Ibraham, a housing judge appointed in 2018.

Tanya, Angie and Mary Ellen speak with Julie Bosi and Valery Federici of Level Up Legal. They talk about coaching in the legal industry and the way that the skills of the law can run counter to the skills of well-being, and how the work of building emotional well-being dovetails with the work of DEIB. Tune in to hear about: How coaching works in the context of the legal profession How coaching is tailored to each individual lawyer Combating negativity bias Building psychological safety to break down systems of oppression

Tanya, Angie and Mary Ellen speak with Ashley Bernal, Director of Research and Impact for ProInspire. Ashley was the Research Consultant for a City Bar report that made recommendations about diversifying and strengthening the pipeline to the legal profession. Ashley helped us understand the findings of the report. She also talked to us about some of the hierarchies in the educational system that work against DEIB. And we talked about the way that students fall out of the legal pipeline because legal education is often designed to be unsupportive. Read Ashley's report, The Diversity Gap: Black and Latinx Disparities in the Legal Pipeline (https://bit.ly/3YwbRI8), and the City Bar's report on legal pipeline program, Sealing the Leaks: Recommendations to Diversify and Strengthen the Pipeline to the Legal Profession (https://bit.ly/3I1eNFS).

Tanya, Angie and Mary Ellen speak with Zila Acosta Grimes, Associate at Debevoise & Plimpton. Zila’s roots in New York’s Latinx community and legal community run deep. She shares her own immersive upbringing in those communities, and shares her playbook for building affinity groups that make inclusive and powerful spaces for communities not traditionally represented in the law. Make an impact by being a part of our work: Join the City Bar (admission fee waived) using this membership form: bit.ly/3qEJqbV Join a City Bar committee: bit.ly/3xqT8SI Sign up for our newsletter to keep up on all ODEIB programs, events, and news: bit.ly/3qE5raK

Committee member Aimee Latorre speaks with Professor Jordana Confino of Fordham Law School. Jordana shares the wisdom of positive lawyering that she teaches to Fordham Law students, underlining the power and practices of self-compassion and a growth mindset. More resources from the Mindfulness and Well-Being in Law Committee: https://bit.ly/3yZEyn8 Ethereal Meditation by Maarten Schellekens is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. No changes were made to this track.

Tanya, Angie and Mary Ellen speak with Yusuf Zakir, Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer at Davis Wright Tremaine. Yusuf shares his own journey into the DEIB space, the ways in which he invites colleagues into that space, and the way in which he has developed his firm’s approach to DEIB. Make an impact by being a part of our work: Join the City Bar (admission fee waived) using this membership form: https://bit.ly/3qEJqbV Join a City Bar committee: https://bit.ly/3xqT8SI Sign up for our newsletter to keep up on all ODEIB programs, events, and news: https://bit.ly/3qE5raK

Staff from City Bar Office for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging sat down with a Commissioner and the Special Counsel for the New York City Racial Justice Commission to discuss the process through which the Commission chose the measures that will appear on New York City ballots, and what changes New Yorkers can expect if the measures pass. Learn more about the Racial Justice Commission ballot measures at the RJC website: https://racialjustice.cityofnewyork.us/ Don't Forget! Early voting in NYC begins on October 29. Learn more about early voting: https://www.nycvotes.org/how-to-vote/early-voting/

Tanya Martinez-Gallinucci, Executive Director of the Office for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging; Angie Avila, ODEIB Manager of Development and Communications; and Mary Ellen La Rosa, ODEIB Diversity & Inclusion Coordinator; speak with Lissette Duran, Senior ESG Associate at Paul Weiss. Lissette shares her experience of being lifted up in the journey of her career; how she has claimed a place in new spaces even while embracing her identity; and how she has safeguarded her sense of identity in the spaces that she chooses. Make an impact by being a part of our work: Join the City Bar (admission fee waived) using this membership form: bit.ly/3qEJqbV Join a City Bar committee: bit.ly/3xqT8SI Sign up for our newsletter to keep up on all ODEIB programs, events, and news: bit.ly/3qE5raK Uptown by Independent Music Licensing Collective (IMLC) is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Tanya Martinez-Gallinucci, ODEIB Executive Director, Angie Avila, ODEIB Manager of Development and Communications, and Mary Ellen La Rosa, ODEIB Diversity & Inclusion Coordinator speak with Leah Goodridge about her article Professionalism as a Racial Construct and discuss how “professionalism” is used to subjugate marginalized groups. Read Leah's Article "Professionalism as a Racial Construct": https://bit.ly/3DtLeMh Make an impact by being a part of our work: Join the City Bar (admission fee waived) using this membership form: https://bit.ly/3qEJqbV Join a City Bar committee: https://bit.ly/3xqT8SI Sign up for our newsletter to keep up on all ODEIB programs, events, and news: https://bit.ly/3qE5raK

The staff of the City Bar Office for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging discuss what Belonging means to them, the future of DEIB, the challenging work ahead, and weaving Belonging into our work every single day. Contact diversity@nycbar.org to learn how you can be involved in future episodes.

Christina Lewicky, a member of the City Bar’s Litigation Committee, speaks with Arun Bhoumik, Executive Director and Assistant General Counsel at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and Edward Y. Kim, Co-Founding Partner of Krieger Kim & Lewin LLP. They discuss the similarities between representing a corporate executive in an individual capacity and an institutional client; the differences between representing a founder-led and a legacy company; and the unique skills of a multicultural litigator.

In this episode, Tenant Harassment, the third episode in our series on housing part proceedings and the reality of housing court. Agata Rumprecht-Behrens, a court attorney in Queens housing court, moderates a panel discussion with Vijay Kitson, a partner at Hertz, Cherson Rosenthal specializing in landlord-tenant trial advocacy; Rachel Nager, a tenant attorney and advocate representing tenants in housing court; and Judge Shorab Ibraham, a housing judge appointed in 2018. The statements and opinions of each speaker are their own and do not represent the views or opinions of other speakers, the housing court committee, the City Bar, respective law firms or the Office of Court Administration.

Ashley Wong, an associate at Sidley Austin LLP, speaks with William Ng, the current president of AABANY, and shareholder at Littler Mendelson, P.C., and Terry Shen, past president of AABANY and a partner at Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP.