Trial Lawyers Section Annual Awards

Justice Erin P. Gall
Supreme Court Justice, Oneida County

Erin P. Gall is a judge of the Supreme Court 5th Judicial District of New York. She was elected to this position on November 8, 2011, effective January 1, 2012, for a 14-year term ending on December 31, 2025.

Gall ran for election to the Supreme Court 5th Judicial District on November 8, 2011. According to unofficial election results from November 9, she won one of the four contested seats with 13.6 percent of the vote. She was endorsed by the Republican and Independence parties for the seat traditionally held by an Oneida County resident.

Other candidates included Charles C. Merrell, Prescott E. Klosner, Michael F. Young, James P. McClusky, Patrick F. MacRae, David Magnarelli, Thomas Buckel, John G. Stone and Claudia Tenney.

Candidates sought to replace retired/retiring judges Michael E. Daley (Herkimer County), Hugh A. Gilbert (Jefferson County), Joseph D. McGuire (Lewis County) and Samuel D. Hester (Oneida County). An unwritten practice called “home rule” states that a judge from each county should serve on the district’s supreme court.

Christopher P. Flint, Esq.
Cooper Erving & Savage LLP, Albany, New York
Menands, New York Village Justice

Chris has been practicing since 1986, predominantly in the fields of personal injury and commercial litigation. He is licensed in federal and state courts in New York and Vermont and has tried numerous cases to verdict in both jurisdictions, representing both plaintiffs and defendants. Chris has secured several seven-figure and numerous six-figure recoveries for his injured clients.

Chris was born and raised in the Capital District. Upon graduating from Manhattan College and the Hofstra University School of Law (n/k/a Maurice Deane School of Law) Chris returned to the Albany area to begin practicing at a firm handling primarily construction disputes. While there, Chirs handled his first personal injury case and decided to concentrate in this area. He accepted an offer from a well-known personal injury firm in Schenectady, New York and won his first plaintiff’s verdict at age 26.

Later, Chris decided to switch gears, and accepted a position as trial attorney for an insurance carrier. Over the next several years, Chris was promoted to Senior Trial Attorney, and eventually, Managing Attorney.

In 2006, Chris returned to private practice to focus on plaintiff’s personal injury work. In 2016, Chris became Of Counsel to Cooper Erving & Savage, where he continues to successfully litigate plaintiff’s personal injury and commercial cases.

In addition to maintaining a very busy practice, Chris was very involved in raising his 4 children. For many years, he coached and served as a Board member in his local youth baseball association. Chris is also involved in numerous charitable causes in the Capital District.

In 2017, Chris was elected Village Justice in Menands, New York, where he continues to serve. Before that, Chris was an adjunct Professor at Siena College, teaching Law in a Business Environment.

Judge Suzanne Adams
Acting Supreme Court Justice, New York County

Helene E. Blank has been a litigator for most of her career having tried major personal injury lawsuits for both plaintiffs and defendants. She has also been involved in complex commercial and real estate matters that have included appointments as Receiver by Judges in both Kings and New York Counties.

Helene Blank was appointed as the Receiver for the East 51st Crane collapse property in Manhattan as well as Receiver for Commercial Property in Brooklyn, which housed a NYC High School and a Board of Education Special School for Problem Students. She has also handled corporate dissolution actions, sales of businesses. She has also handled multiple Referee matters, including surplus money cases and realty actions involving matters such as brokers’ fee disputes.

For most of her forty years as an attorney, she has been involved in multiple Bar Associations because she believes they are vital to the profession.

She has made it a centerpiece of her career to connect to younger attorneys, especially woman – to mentor and guide them. To that end, Blank has been the most deeply involved with the following organizations:

• The Brooklyn Woman’s Bar Association, Past President
• The Women’s Trial Lawyers Caucus – Founding Member
• The New York State Trial Lawyers Association – Board of Directors, Member of Executive Committee, Dean of the New York State Trial Lawyers Institute – its educational arm which oversees and directs its CLE Programs and publications, as well as the Chair and co-chair over many years of many committees within the organization
• Nathan R. Sobel Kings County American Inn of Court – Founding Member, Master and Past President
• The Metropolitan Women’s Bar Association – Past President

Additionally, she is a member of the New York State Bar Association, The New York State Women’s Bar Association, The Jewish Lawyers Guild, the Brooklyn Bar Association, the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, the Columbian Lawyers and JALBCA.

As an attorney, Blank has been appointed to numerous Office of Court Administration Committees. She is presently a member of the OCA Civil Practice Advisory Committee. Through that committee she wrote an amendment to the CPLR, that our Committee approved and helped advance. It passed the legislature and was signed into law. Attorneys in New York, like in so many other states, can now subpoena documents for trial to their offices.

Helene has been asked to speak to the bench and the bar frequently and have done so for many organizations. She has also lectured for the New York Supreme Court Judges Associations, taught classes for Newly Elected Judges, lectured for Judges of the Civil Court of the City of New York and lectured for the following organizations: the New York State Bar, The Brooklyn Bar, New York County Lawyers, The Association of the Bar of the City of New York, Brooklyn Women’s Bar Association, and the New York State Trial Lawyers Institute. She has been appointed by various organizations to be their representative on Judicial Screening Panels. She also been appointed to the Committee of Character and Fitness for the Appellate Division First Department.

Hon Doris M. Gonzalez, Justice of the Supreme Court, 12th Judicial District of New York

Justice Doris Gonzalez was born in Brooklyn and raised in the Bronx. She grew up in The Boston Secor Housing Projects located near Dyre Ave.  Both of her parents were born in Puerto Rico and met here in New York. Her mom was a part-time lunch aid at her grammar school, Saint Philip and James and her father a furniture finisher. Her father completed seventh grade and her mother received her GED thru a program offered by NYCHA. She has an older brother, retired from Law Enforcement and a sister who is the Assistant to a Podiatrist in the Bronx. Most importantly, she is a single mother to a daughter Milta, who is 22 years old, and a volleyball player attending Monroe College.

Justice Gonzalez attended, Cardinal Spellman High School, Fordham University, Rose Hill, and received her Juris Doctor from C.U.N.Y Law School at Queens College.

In 1985 she started her legal career in the insurance industry where very few Hispanic female attorneys were employed. She rose thru the ranks to become a senior trial attorney, trying high profile cases. After 15 years of practice in the private sector, she went to work for a Supreme Court Judge in the Appellate Term 1^st Department and then in Supreme Court Civil Division, Bronx County.

She served as a member of: 1) her local Community Board, 2) the Neighborhood Advisory Board (Chairperson), and 3) the Community Action Board (Chairperson for Queens and Bronx County).

She was elected as a Civil Court Judge in Bronx County, in November of 2006.  In December 2009, she was appointed by Judge Pfau as Acting Supreme Court Justice. She sat in Supreme Criminal Bronx County for three years; Supreme Court Matrimonial Division for three years; and now sits in Supreme Court Civil Division Bronx County handling an array of civil matters in the Special Trial Part, and the Foreclosure Part. She was elected to Supreme Court in 2016.  December 21, 2018, she was appointed by Judge Larry Marks as Administrative Judge of Supreme Court Bronx County Civil Matters.

She served on the following: i) President of the Latino Judges Association; ii) Chair of the Gender Fairness Committee a) on the “women of distinction” subcommittee; iii) the Chair of the Committee to Encourage Judicial Service, for the New York City Bar; iv) appointed to the Judicial Advisory Council and sat on the facilities and technology committee.

She remains on the: Foreclosure Task Force of the New York City Bar; Special Committee to Encourage Judicial Service; Board Chair for not for profit Legacy Volleyball Club; Board of Trustee of Preston High School; member of The Bronx County Bar Association and The Bronx Women’s Bar Association; member of the Puerto Rican Bar Association; Cervantes Society; the New York State Bar Association and The City Bar.

She was an Adjunct Professor for Pace University Paralegal Program and newly joined Monroe College School of Criminal and Social Justice as an Adjunct Professor.