NYSBA Leadership

T. Andrew Brown of Rochester is founder and managing partner of Brown Hutchinson LLP. A 29-year member of the State Bar Association, he has chaired the Trial Lawyers Section and Finance Committee, was vice-president for the 7th Judicial District, served as a member-at-large of the Executive Committee and co-chaired the Task Force on the Future of the Legal Profession in 2010 and 2011.

Since 2012, Brown has been a member of the New York State Board of Regents, which provides general supervision of all educational activities within the state and has been Vice-Chancellor of the Board since 2017.
Brown entered law practice as an associate with Nixon, Hargrave, Devans and Doyle (now Nixon Peabody). He has also served as Rochester’s corporation counsel — the city’s chief legal officer and head of its law department — and as deputy county attorney for Monroe County. He has been a mediator and an arbitrator on the commercial, employment and complex case panels of the American Arbitration Association for more than two decades.

Brown is a former general counsel of the National Bar Association, the largest association of attorneys and judges of color in the world. He is a past president of the Monroe County Bar Association and the Rochester Black Bar Association. He has served on many other boards and commissions and has also held adjunct teaching positions with the State University of New York.

Brown is a 1984 graduate of the University of Michigan Law School and a 1981 graduate of Syracuse University.

Sherry Levin Wallach of Westchester is serving her fourth one-year term as NYSBA secretary. She is the deputy executive director of the Legal Aid Society of Westchester County.

A former chair of the Criminal Justice Section, Levin Wallach has served as vice president from the Ninth Judicial District to the Executive Committee, chaired the Membership Committee and co-chaired the Task Force on Incarceration Release Planning and Programs. Currently in her third four-year term on the House of Delegates, Levin Wallach serves on the Committee on Professional Discipline, the Committee on Mandated Representation, the Task Force on Parole Reform and chairs the Resolutions Committee.

Levin Wallach is co-founder of the NYSBA Young Lawyers Section Trial Academy, an annual program offering five days of intensive trial training, where she is a team leader and lecturer. Levin Wallach organizes and lectures at continuing legal education programs for NYSBA, the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Westchester County Bar Association on the topics of criminal and civil trial practice, ethics and DWI. She has written 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.

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 in the state and federal courts. She is admitted to practice in New York, the U.S. District Courts for New York’s Southern and Eastern Districts and the U.S. Supreme Court. She serves on Westchester and Putnam counties’ 18B panels under their assigned counsel plans, which provide criminal defense for indigent people.

She is a former assistant district attorney of Bronx County. Levin Wallach was principal at her law firm Wallach & Rendo, LLP for approximately 14 years, and of counsel to both Bashian Law P.C., formerly Bashian & Farber LLP and Brown Hutchinson LLP.

Levin Wallach earned her law degree from Hofstra University School of Law, now the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University and her undergraduate degree from George Washington University.

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 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, 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 College.

Hank Greenberg is the immediate past President of the New York State Bar Association, the largest voluntary state bar association in the nation. A former Counsel to the New York State Attorney General, General Counsel to a major New York State agency and federal prosecutor, Hank has handled numerous high-profile matters. He concentrates his practice on civil litigation, criminal and civil investigations, and regulatory and administrative law.

From 2007 to 2010, Hank served as Counsel to then New York State Attorney General (now Governor), Andrew M. Cuomo. In that capacity, he worked on some of the agency’s most significant litigation and public policy initiatives. He also served as General Counsel for the New York State Department of Health (1995 to 2000), where he was the chief legal advisor to the Commissioner of Health and administered an office of more than 100 attorneys engaged in virtually all aspects of administrative law.

Amongst the other government posts he has held, Hank served as Counsel to the Lieutenant Governor of New York State (1995), an Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) for the Northern District of New York (1990 to 1995), and law clerk to then Associate Judge (later Chief Judge) Judith S. Kaye of the New York Court of Appeals (1988-1990). As an AUSA, he prosecuted numerous federal criminal cases, including white collar crime and public corruption.

In 2014, on the recommendation of Governor Cuomo, the State Commissioner of Education appointed Hank to serve as Fiscal Monitor for the troubled East Ramapo School District in Rockland County. Two years earlier, the Commissioner appointed Hank special investigator to conduct a complete review of the Education Department’s processes for receiving, reviewing and investigating reports of alleged improprieties involving student assessments. In both investigations, Hank delivered reports with recommendations to the State’s Board of Regents that resulted in regulatory reforms.

In addition to his current role as president of the New York State Bar Association, Hank is the immediate past chair of its Committee on the New York State Constitution, vice-president of the 3rd Judicial District, and a member of the House of Delegates (which he now chairs). He also was chair of the Committee on Court Structure and Operations, Legislative Policy Committee, Special Committee on Law School Loan Assistance for the Public Interest, and Committee on Attorneys in Public Service.

Hank serves on a number of professional committees and other bodies. He is counsel to the New York State Commission on Judicial Nomination, which nominates New York’s Court of Appeals Judges; chairs the Third Department Judicial Screening Committee and the New York State Fair Advisory Board; and is a member of the State Judicial Screening Committee, Judicial Task Force on the New York State Constitution and the State Commission on the Restoration of the Capitol. He is vice chair of Statewide Programming for The Historical Society of the New York Courts, a Life Fellow of the New York Bar Foundation, and a member of the New York State Judicial Institute on Professionalism in the Law and the Advisory Group of the New York State and Federal Judicial Council.

Hank is a frequent lecturer and has been published numerous times on a wide range of legal subjects, including constitutional law, administrative law, criminal procedure, trial and appellate practice, health law, legal history and judicial philosophy.