New York State Bar Association To Honor Gov. Kathy Hochul as Part of 150th Anniversary Celebration
12.10.2025
The New York State Bar Association has selected Gov. Kathy Hochul, New York’s first female governor, to receive the Gold Medal, the association’s highest honor. She is the first governor to receive the award since Gov. Nathan L. Miller was awarded the inaugural Gold Medal in 1952.
“Gov. Hochul has been instrumental in protecting reproductive health care, championing New York’s Equal Rights Amendment, enacting prudent gun control laws and standing up to racial injustice,” said Kathleen Sweet, president of the New York State Bar Association. “I am pleased that we will be honoring the governor and all our past presidents at the Gala. Our past presidents built the association, which is now the largest and most respected voluntary state bar association in the nation.”
Honoring attorneys who render extraordinary service to the public and the profession is part of NYSBA’s Annual Meeting tradition. This year’s event features a wide range of programs and activities tailored to the diverse interests and needs of New York lawyers. The Annual Meeting takes place from Tuesday, Jan. 13, to Friday, Jan. 16, at the New York Hilton Midtown.
The gala dinner, the social highlight of the association’s Annual Meeting, will be Thursday, Jan. 15, at The Plaza Hotel. It kicks off a year of 150th Anniversary celebrations. A commemorative edition of the Bar Journal will be issued and videos, photos and stories tracing the association’s history will be memorialized on the NYSBA website. The annual President’s Reception on Wednesday, Jan. 14, will be our official birthday party.
The Presidential Summit, the marquee event of the New York State Bar Association’s Annual Meeting, is on Wednesday, Jan. 14, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Panelists will discuss “The Case for Constitutional Failure,” and whether the three branches of government have fulfilled their Constitutional duties.
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jack Rakove of Stanford University and Yale University Law School’s Rule of Law Clinic Co-Director, former Assistant United States Attorney, and January 6 Prosecutor Sonia Mittal will lead this important and timely conversation. Lawrence O’Donnell, MSNOW television anchor and commentator, will moderate the discussion.
