NYSBA Leadership
Officers
Sherry Levin Wallach, President
President Sherry Levin Wallach is the Deputy Executive Director of the Legal Aid Society of Westchester County. Levin Wallach concentrates her practice on criminal defense. She has also practiced in the areas of estate planning, probate and estate administration, real estate and general civil litigation. She has practiced in both the state and federal courts. In her…
Read MorePresident Sherry Levin Wallach is the Deputy Executive Director of the Legal Aid Society of Westchester County.
Levin Wallach concentrates her practice on criminal defense. She has also practiced in the areas of estate planning, probate and estate administration, real estate and general civil litigation. She has practiced in both the state and federal courts. In her years in private practice, she served on both the Westchester and Putnam County Assigned Counsel panels, which provide criminal defense for those who cannot afford an attorney.
In 2022, Levin Wallach was appointed to the Advisory Board for the New York University’s Metaverse Collaborative.
She began her career as an assistant district attorney of Bronx County. Levin Wallach then took an position as an associate at the law firm of McAloon & Friedman, PC, where she handled medical malpractice defense. She went on to be a principal at her law firm Wallach & Rendo, LLP for the next 14 years until becoming of counsel to both Bashian Law (formerly Bashian & Farber), and Brown Hutchinson.
Levin Wallach is co-founder of the NYSBA Young Lawyers Section Trial Academy, an annual program offering five days of intensive trial training. She continued to serve as the program’s faculty organizer, team leader and lecturer. At the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic, she assisted the NYSBA CLE Department on expanding the Trial Academy to have a series of virtual lectures on trial practice that run live from June to December and then chaired its 2021 inaugural Virtual Trial Academy. In 2022, Levin Wallach has assisted the NYSBA staff and program chairs in returning the program to it’s live format and bringing it to Syracuse University’s School of Law.
A former chair of the Criminal Justice and Young Lawyers Sections, Levin Wallach served as NYSBA secretary for four terms, was a vice president from the Ninth Judicial District to the Executive Committee, and four years as a Member-at-Large on the Executive Committee. She chaired and co-chaired the Membership Committee for seven years and co-chaired the Task Force on Incarceration Release Planning and Programs where she chairs the Supervision subcommittee of the Task Force on Parole Reform. Levin Wallach serves on the Committee on Professional Discipline, the Committee on Mandated Representation, the Committee on Immigration Representation, and is a former chair of the Resolutions Committee. She is also a member of the NYSBA Women in the Law Section, Criminal Justice Section, Trial Lawyers Section, LGBTQ Law Section and the Torts, Insurance, and Compensation Law Section.
Levin Wallach coached the Pace Law School Mock Trial Team for two years before beginning her term as NYSBA’s President. She has taught at the National Institute of Trial Advocacy at Hofstra University School of Law and coached and judged high school, college and law school mock trial competitions.
She organizes and lectures at continuing legal education programs for NYSBA, the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, The New York State Defenders Association and the Westchester County Bar Association on the topics including trial advocacy, criminal and civil trial practice, ethics, women in the law, forensic science and DWI. She authored a chapter on DWI defense, “Best Practices for Defense Attorneys in Today’s DWI Cases,” in Inside the Minds: Strategies for Defending DWI Cases in New York, as well as articles on criminal justice issues and trial practice which have been published in the New York Law Journal and the publications of the New York State Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section.
Levin Wallach earned her Juris Doctorate from Hofstra University School of Law (now the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University) and her undergraduate BBA from George Washington University.
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Richard C. Lewis
President-Elect
Taa R. Grays
Secretary
Domenick Napoletano
Treasurer
T. Andrew Brown
Immediate Past President
NYSBA Officers include the President, President-Elect, Secretary, and Treasurer. The President-Elect automatically becomes President the year following election.
The control and administration of the NYSBA is vested in the House of Delegates, the decision and policy-making body of the Association. The House meets four times a year (January, April, June and November). Action taken by the House of Delegates on specific issues becomes official NYSBA policy.
NYSBA Bylaws
The Bylaws are the governing rules of the New York State Bar Association and regulate the structure of the organization, the roles of officers, membership provisions, and the workings of NYSBA sections, committees, and the House of Delegates.
Totaling thirty members, the Executive Committee has the authority to act and speak on behalf of the Association, consistent with previous action of the House of Delegates, when the House is not in session. The Executive Committee meets quarterly before meetings of the House of Delegates and at other times as necessary.
The Executive Committee is composed of the officers of the Association, together with vice-presidents from each of the thirteen judicial districts in the state (the 1st district has two vice-presidents), eight members-at-large, and the immediate past president. All officers are elected to serve one-year terms.
All members of the Executive Committee also serve in the House of Delegates.
Section Chairs represent each of NYSBA’s 27 Sections. Each Section draws its membership from lawyers or judges with common professional interests. Sections operate with their own officers, dues schedule and committees. They address professional development, improvement of laws and continuing education in a variety of substantive law fields.
Richard C. Lewis
Richard C. Lewis is the new president-elect of the New York State Bar Association.
Lewis of Binghamton serves as special counsel at Hinman, Howard & Kattell. He concentrates his practice in litigation and business law. Lewis most recently served as vice-president of the Sixth Judicial District on the Executive Committee. He has served on the NYSBA House of Delegates since 2001. He was a member of the Committee on Professional Discipline and the Nominating Committee, as well as the Local and State Government Law Section.
Lewis is a past president of the Broome County Bar Association and past chair of its Endowment, Ethics and Grievance committees. He also sits on the executive and endowment committees of the Jewish Federation of Greater Binghamton.
He is a former trustee of Hillel Academy of Broome County and served as its president from 2002 to 2012. He is past president of the Board of Trustees of Temple Israel, past chair of the Broome County Arena Board; past president of Broome Legal Assistance Corporation; past director of Children’s Home of Wyoming Conference; and past director of SOS Shelter, Inc.
Lewis is a graduate of Ithaca College and John Marshall Law School.
Taa R. Grays
Taa Grays is vice president and associate general counsel of information governance, MetLife Legal Affairs. As the lead of information governance, Grays is responsible for the strategic management of MetLife’s global Information Lifecycle Management Program. She leads an eight-person team that develops, implements and manages the information governance strategic plan.
Grays is co-chair of the NYSBA Task Force on Racial Injustice & Police Reform. She is a member of the Business Law, Corporate Counsel and Women in Law Sections, as well as the Task Force on Autonomous Vehicles and the Law. She previously served as vice president of the First Judicial District on the Executive Committee. She previously chaired the New York State Conference of Bar Leaders and the Committee on Women in the Law (now the Women in Law Section). She received NYSBA’s Diversity Trailblazer Award in 2008.
Prior to this role, Grays served as the chief of staff to the general counsel since 2010. She started with MetLife in 2003 in the litigation section. Prior to MetLife, Grays was an assistant district attorney with the Bronx district attorney’s office in its rackets bureau for five-and-a-half years.
Grays has been recognized as one of 100 Leading Women Lawyers in New York by Crain’s New York Business in 2017, a Visionary Leader in Litigation by Inside Counsel in 2016, among the Most Influential Black Lawyers in 2015, and R3 – 100: Ready to Rise to become a general counsel in 2013 and 2015.
Within the legal community, the New York City Bar Association recognized her as a Diversity Champion in 2015. The Metropolitan Black Bar Association recognized her dedication and leadership to the bar in 2010 by honoring her with its inaugural Bar Leaders of the Year Award.
Grays earned her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center and received her undergraduate degree from Harvard College.
Domenick Napoletano
Domenick Napoletano is a solo practitioner focusing on complex commercial litigation and appellate work while maintaining a general practice. A number of his cases have appeared in published decisions, most involving real property and tenancy and occupancy issues. He has also spearheaded various state and federal class action lawsuits, including one against the New York City Department of Finance for its imposition of “vault taxes.”
Among his NYSBA activities, Napoletano is the immediate past chair of the General Practice Section and co-chair of NYSBA’s Emergency Task Force for Solo and Small Firm Practitioners as well as the Committee on Civil Practice Law and Rules. He is a member of NYSBA’s Restarting the Economy Work Group and the COVID-19 Recovery Task Force working group on landlord-tenant disputes. He has served on many NYSBA committees, including Finance, Leadership Development, Bar Leaders of New York State, Animals in the Law, the President’s Committee on Access to Justice, the Task Force on the Evaluation of Candidates for Election to Judicial Office and the Task Force on Mass Shootings and Assault Weapons.
Napoletano also served on NYSBA’s Executive Committee as vice president from the Second Judicial District, and the House of Delegates representing the Brooklyn Bar Association. He is a past president of the Brooklyn Bar Association, the Columbian Lawyers Association of Brooklyn, the Confederation of Columbian Lawyers of the State of New York and the Catholic Lawyers Guild of Kings County.
While in college and throughout law school, Napoletano worked for then-New York State Assemblyman Michael L. Pesce, who recently retired as presiding justice of the state Supreme Court Appellate Term for the 2nd, 11th and 13th Judicial Districts. Napoletano earned his law degree from Hofstra University School of Law and his undergraduate degree from Brooklyn.
T. Andrew Brown
T. Andrew Brown of Rochester, founder and managing partner of Brown Hutchinson, LLP, and president of Ascend Wellness Holdings, became president of the New York State Bar Association on June 1, 2021.
A NYSBA member for 37 years, he is a former chair of the Trial Lawyers Section and Finance Committee, vice-president for the 7th Judicial District, a member-at-large of the Executive Committee and co-chair of the Task Force on the Future of the Legal Profession and the Task Force on Racial Injustice and Police Reform, among various other leadership positions.
Brown formerly practiced as an associate with Nixon, Hargrave, Devans and Doyle (now Nixon Peabody) in the New York City and Rochester offices. He also served as Rochester’s corporation counsel – the City’s Chief Legal Officer and head of its law department. Brown’s civil litigation practice covers all phases of trial and appeals in matters of commercial disputes, personal injury and employment. His practice is statewide in state and federal courts. His clientele is nationwide. He has also been a mediator and arbitrator on the commercial, employment and complex case panels of the American Arbitration Association since 1996. He has received many awards for his business and civic achievements, and is rated at the highest level for attorneys, AV-Preeminent, for both legal ability and ethics by Martindale-Hubbell.
Brown is a past president of the Monroe County Bar Association and the Rochester Black Bar Association. He is a past general counsel of the National Bar Association. He recently completed nine years on the New York State Board of Regents, the last five as Vice-Chancellor. He has served on many other boards and commissions and has also held adjunct teaching positions with the State University of New York, and has lectured on many legal topics over the years.
Brown earned his law degree from the University of Michigan Law School, and his undergraduate degree from Syracuse University.