Thursday, June 10 from 12-1pm
Guests of Honor will include:
Hon. Suzanne Adams
Acting Supreme Court Justice, 1st District, New York County
Judge Adams is an Acting Supreme Court Justice in New York County. Prior to her election to the bench in November 2017, Judge Adams had nearly twenty years’ experience as a litigator in New York State and Federal courts. Judge Adams is a member of the New York County Lawyers Association (formerly co-chair of the Civil Court Section), the New York State Trial Lawyers Association, the New York State Bar Association in the Torts Insurance and Compensation Law Section, Judges and Lawyers Breast Cancer Alert, the Columbian Lawyers First Judicial Department, National Association of Italian American Women and the NAACP Mid-Manhattan Branch. She is a graduate of Penn State University with a B.A. in Journalism, and received her J.D. from Hofstra University School of Law.
Hon. Mary Ann Brigantti
Justice of the NYS Supreme Court, Associate Justice NYS Appellate Term, 1st Department
Justice Brigantti graduated from Fordham University in the Bronx in 1981. She served as a legislative intern to the Assembly Majority Whip during Governor Hugh Carey’s tenure. As a Council on Legal Education Opportunity fellow she attended Suffolk Law School in Boston, Mass. She received her J.D. from Temple University School of Law in Philadelphia, Pa. in 1985 and participated in a study abroad program at Tel Aviv University Law School in Tel Aviv, Israel. She is a scholarship recipient of the Columbia Law School Mediation Training program pursuant to Part 146 Rules of the Chief Administrative Justice.
Justice Brigantti served as a Senior Court Attorney to Administrative Justices Israel Rubin and Jacqueline Silbermann of the Civil Court of New York City; she served as a Court Attorney to Judges Carol Huff, Peter Tom and as Pro Se Attorney for the NYC Housing Court. Justice Brigantti was thereafter appointed as Bureau Chief/Executive Board Member with the NYS Attorney General; and thereafter as Counsel to the Bronx Borough President. By gubernatorial appointment, she served as Board Member to the Commission on NYS Constitutional Revision and Panel Member of the NYS Task Force: Minority Representation on the Bench. By mayoral appointment, Justice Brigantti served as Commissioner to the Equal Employment Practices Commission, Board Member of the NYC Districting Commission and as Board Member of the NYC Health and Hospital Corporation.
In 1997, she was elected Judge of the Civil Court of the City of New York and in 2001 was assigned to the Criminal Court of the City of New York for 3 years. In 2005, she was elected as Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, where she presided over hundreds of labor law, premise liability and medical malpractice trials until she was appointed to manage a specially designated high-volume Motor Vehicle Part from preliminary to pretrial conferences. Justice Brigantti has successfully settled a high percentage of trial ready cases in the blockbuster parts. She now serves in her dual capacity as a Supreme Court Justice, re-elected for a second term in 2018 and as Associate Justice of the Appellate Term, First Department appointed in 2021. Justice Brigantti has further stepped up her duties to assist in the pandemic created backlog in the NYC Family Court by volunteering to adjudicate Family Court Custody and Visitation cases.
Justice Brigantti is the 1st Vice President of the Supreme Court Justices Association of the City of New York, 12th Judicial District Representative of the Supreme Court Justices Association of the State of New York, Chair of the 12th Judicial District Law Library, Board Member of the Gender Fairness Committee of the 12th Judicial District, Board Member of the Latino Judges Association, Co-Chair Advisory member of the Puerto Rican Bar Association, and a member of the Judiciary Committee of the New York State Bar Association, National Association of Women Judges, Women’s Bar Association and Bronx County Bar Association. She is a faculty speaker for several CLE classes for the NYS Trial Lawyers Association and the NYS Bar Association. She is a participating judge of the Thurgood Marshall Program, and Fordham Law School, Moore Advocacy Center, Moot Court Program and a speaker/mentor with the National Association of Women Judges/ St. Barnabas internship project. As a Bronx resident, she volunteers with the American Red Cross of Greater NY, NYS Chaplaincy Task Force and with the NYC Office of Emergency Management as a Community Emergency Response Team member. Justice Brigantti has received numerous awards, proclamations and citations for her community service.
Hon. Karla Moskowitz
Associate Supreme Court Justice, Appellate Division, 1st Department, New York (Ret.)
Justice Karla Moskowitz (ret.) is a 1966 graduate of Columbia Law School. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree, cum laude, from Alfred University in 1963. Justice Moskowitz has served as a judge since 1982 when she was elected Judge of the Civil Court of the City of New York. In 1987 she was appointed Acting Supreme Court Justice, was elected to the Supreme Court in 1991 and re-elected in 2005. During that time, she served as a trial judge in Supreme Court Civil Branch sitting in a Medical Malpractice Part from 1992 until 2001 and in the Commercial Division from 2001 until her appointment in January 2008 to the Appellate Division, First Department where she sat until her retirement.
Instead of retiring from practice, Justice moskowitz has served as a neutral with NAM, on the Appellate Division, First Department, pre-argument mediation program, on the New York State Bar Association commercial and federal section executive committee and chair of its Appellate committee as well as co-chair of the NYSBA Trial Lawyers dispute resolution committee and on its executive committee and a member of the NYSBA women’s section and appellate reactive committee. She is a member of the NYC Bar’s committee on Uniform laws and a long time member of the historical trials committee of an Inn of Court.
Her non-judicial, legal experience has included service in the State Attorney General’s office, in the New York City Human Resources Administration, as a Hearing Officer for the New York City Board of Education, a member of the Criminal 18-B Appeal Panel of the Appellate Division, First Department, an arbitrator for the Small Claims Division of the Civil Court, an attorney in private practice and as an Administrative Law Judge for the New York State Department of Health.
She is a Past President of the New York Women’s Bar Association, the New York State Association of Women Judges and National Association of Women Judges. She is also a Founder and Past President of the Judges and Lawyers Breast Cancer Alert. She was Co-chair of the Summary Jury Trials Committee of the Jury Trial Project of the New York State Courts from 2003 to 2005. She is a Charter Member of the American College of Business Court Judges and sits on the Executive Committee of the Commercial and Federal Litigation Section of the New York State Bar Association. Among the many honors she has received are Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws from Alfred University in 2008, at which time she was the Commencement Speaker; Induction in Phi Beta Kappa in 2006; the Abigail Allen award from Alfred University in 2004; the Edith I. Spivack Award of the Women’s Rights Committee of the New York County Lawyers Association in 2003; the Founder’s Award of the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York in 1999, and Women of Valor Award of the Women’s Medical Association of New York City in 1995. Justice Moskowitz is also a frequent lecturer on topics including
civility in the courtroom, commercial litigation, e-discovery, mediation and the advancement of women in the profession.
Hon. Bianka Perez
Supreme Court Justice, Bronx County, 12th Judicial District
Bianka Perez is a Judge of the Supreme Court of the State of New York in the 12th Judicial District, Bronx County Civil Term elected November 2020. Prior to her election she was a Civil Court Judge in Bronx County, elected November 2016. From January 2017 to March 2018, Judge Perez was assigned to the Criminal Court of Bronx County. She is also an Adjunct Professor at Monroe College, teaching various undergraduate courses in the Criminal Justice Program. Judge Perez also served as an Administrative Law Judge with the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings at the City of New York from 2012 to 2014, where she adjudicated violations against small business owners.
Judge Perez served as Commissioner of the New York City Board of Elections from September 2014 through June 2016 presiding over various election law matters. She was named the first Latina President of the New York City Board of Elections in January 2016. From 2004 to 2016, Judge Perez was the sole owner of the Law Office of Bianka Perez, where she litigated a variety of civil and criminal matters. Prior to her solo practice she was an Associate at the firm of Ginarte, O’Dwyer, et. al. from August 1995 through June 2004, where she handled many civil matters from inception to trial.
Judge Perez is on the Board of Directors of the Latino Judges Association and the Dominican Bar Association. She previously served as President of the Dominican Bar Association in 2012 and 2013. Judge Perez also served as Parliamentarian of the Bronx Democratic County Committee from 2012 to 2014. Judge Perez is a member of the New York State Bar Association, American Bar Association, Hispanic National Bar Association, the Metropolitan Black Bar Association, and the Puerto Rican Bar Association.
Judge Perez received her Doctorate in Law at New York Law School in 2000 and her B.A. from John Jay College of Criminal Justice C.U.N.Y. in 1995, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude. She is admitted to the New York Bar, the New Jersey Bar and the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York.
Judge Perez was born in the United States. Her parents are from the Dominican Republic and came to the United States in the 1970s. She currently resides in the Bronx with her husband and children.