City Bar Justice Center Celebrates Pro Bono Volunteers at the 2015 Jeremy G. Epstein Awards

The Justice Center kicked off the start of National Pro Bono Week on Monday night with the seventh annual Jeremy G. Epstein Awards for Outstanding Pro Bono Service. The reception hall at the New York City Bar Association was packed with family and friends celebrating the pro bono volunteers who went above and beyond in assisting disadvantaged New Yorkers with their complex legal problems.

New York City Bar President Debra L. Raskin started the evening with opening remarks and introduced the keynote speaker, Hon. Carol Bagley Amon, Chief Judge for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Judge Amon described Jeremy G. Epstein’s unrelenting commitment to pro bono service and lauded the honorees’ achievements by stating:

“The attorneys we honor tonight have each found their own way to open the doors of justice to the communities they serve, and I am so impressed with their accomplishments. In learning about tonight’s recipients, I was reminded of the words of Pope Francis on his recent visit to New York in his speech at Madison Square Garden. He said:

‘In big cities, beneath the roar of traffic, beneath “the rapid pace of change”, so many faces pass by unnoticed because they have no “right” to be there, no right to be part of the city. They are the foreigners, the children who go without schooling, those deprived of medical insurance, the homeless, the forgotten elderly. These people stand at the edges of our great avenues, in our streets, in deafening anonymity.’

All of the award recipients tonight have, in their own way, noticed these faces and have heard their voices, lifting them up from that deafening anonymity.”

City Bar Fund Board Chair Jane C. Sherburne presented the awards to the honorees, pictured below:

 
Back row, from left: Anna Karpman, BNP Paribas; Rustin Paul, Blank Rome LLP; Angela Ni, Paul Hastings LLP; Pia Williams Keevil, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP; Jane C. Sherburne, City Bar Fund Board Chair; Fay Cleghorn-Stephens, Citigroup Inc.; Jennifer Kroman, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP; Mary Croly, McLaughlin & Stern LLP; Lynn M. Kelly, CBJC Executive Director; Chelley E. Talbert, NBCUniversal, Inc.; Santiago Assalini, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP; Marissa Geannette, White & Case LLP; Richard Mancino, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP; Hon. Carol Bagley Amon, Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York

Front row, from left: Martin Bunin, Alston & Bird LLP; Amy Epstein; Peggy Collen, Attorney-at-Law; Debra L. Raskin, New York City Bar Association President; Lisa Koenig, Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy LLP

The 2015 Jeremy G. Epstein Awards are a part of the City Bar Justice Center’s “Falling for Pro Bono” campaign celebrating National Pro Bono week.