Sharing Our Memories: Sarah Gold
3.13.2026
In honor of our 150th anniversary, we asked longtime, involved members for their recollections of the New York State Bar Association.
Sarah Gold recalled meeting U.S. Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg during a Supreme Court admission Program in 2014.
“We knew Ruth Bader Ginsburg was coming by because we had set it up in advance. I had been involved in doing that setup. Sotomayor showed up first, and we weren’t expecting her to show up. So, she walks into the room, and everybody’s like ‘holy crap.’ There are all these pictures of me standing behind them.
“Sotomayor is talking, and then Ruth Bader Ginsburg shows up. This doesn’t happen. You usually get one judge. And usually the rule is, if you get one judge, the other will leave if you happen to have somebody else stop by. Sotomayor was going to leave, and RBG turns to her, goes, ‘We’re all New Yorkers here. You can stay.’
“So now we got two of them, and I’m literally standing behind both of them.”
Gold explained that it was the week before the decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby was released.
“They were in the process of finalizing that, and somebody asked a question like ‘How is the term going?’ RBG kind of went off. Not in a bad way towards us. The writing was on the wall already, and she was very passionate about how things were going. And they weren’t going well. She was like Yoda. She was getting taller as she talked. It was just strangest thing I’ve ever seen.
“That was really cool. Just from a lawyer’s standpoint, when does this ever happen? When is that ever going to happen again?”
Do you have a special memory you want to share in honor of our 150th anniversary? Email rmelnitsky@nysba.org and your memory may be featured on our website.
