New York City Bar Association Podcast

Today the City Bar Podcast brings you an episode from its sister show, Building Belonging, a podcast of the City Bar's Office for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging. Building Belonging is launching a new season that brings listeners into the heartfelt, uncertain, messy, hopeful discussions that capture the work of DEIB on the ground as the landscape shifts and changes. In the first episode...

Microsoft is mobilizing generative artificial intelligence technology to address the access to justice gap in the United States. In partnership with the Northwest Immigrants Rights Project (NWIRP), they have built a collaborative initiative, ‘LUZ,’ to streamline and scale the DACA renewal process for Dreamers. The City Bar Presidential Task Force on AI and Digital Technology’s Ray Brescia hosts Ma...

In this episode of Mindful Lawyering we explore the emotional, mental, and physical toll of caregiver roles, particularly in the legal profession, and share practical strategies for managing stress — including seeking support, realigning priorities, and practicing self-compassion. Jordana Confino, a former practicing attorney and founder of JC Coaching and Consulting, is joined by Robbie Margolius...

Our latest episode is brought to you by the City Bar’s Mass Incarceration Task Force. Tess Cohen, Chair of Task Force, discusses the Treatment Court Expansion Act, formerly known as the Treatment Not Jail Act, with guests Jeffrey Berman, a mental health attorney with the Legal Aid Society of Manhattan, and Mark Graham, founder and executive director of the Redemption Center. They explore the legis...

Salahuddin Ahmed, a constitutional lawyer and expert from Pakistan, visited the City Bar Middle East and North African Affairs Committee to discuss the 26th Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan and its impact on the independence of the Supreme Court and the Rule of Law. For a brief background on how the 26th Amendment attempts to subjugate the judiciary to the present regime in Pakistan, read...

Jerome Walker, co-chair of the Presidential Task Force on Artificial Intelligence and Digital Technologies, leads a discussion on President Trump's January 23, 2025 executive order: Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence. The episode features insights from Nikhil Aggarwal, Harut Minasian, and Nichole Sterling on the implications of reversing President Biden's AI polici...

Two legal experts, Tiffany Smith from WilmerHale and Stuart Levi from Skadden Arps, analyze President Trump's January 23rd, 2025 Executive Order on Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology. They compare it with President Biden's previous executive order, discussing the balance between innovation and risk, potential impacts on the digital assets industry, regulatory clarifi...

This episode of the New York City Bar Association comes to you from the Mindfulness and Well-Being in Law Committee. Host Scott Mason and committee Chair Aimee Latorre delve into the dimensions of wellbeing, Aimee’s personal journey with mindfulness, and the profession’s current crisis of mental health, attrition, and substance abuse. They also discuss the six dimensions of wellbeing defined by th...

Our latest episode from the Presidential Task Force on Artificial Intelligence and Digital Technologies surveys an emerging landscape of legislation around AI liabilities and remedies. David Lisson (Davis Polk), Clint Morrison (Patterson Belknap), Shayne O'Reilly (Meta), Matt Bacal (Davis Polk), and Rama Elluru ( Special Competitive Studies Project) unpack regulations from state, federal and inter...

The City Bar's Environmental Law Committee hosted a discussion on NYSDEC's Brownfield Cleanup Program (BCP) and New York City's Voluntary Cleanup Program (VCP) which encourage private-sector cleanups of contaminated sites and promotes the redevelopment of the sites through economic incentives. We discussed the potential impact these programs may have on environmental justice communities in New Yor...

To many of us, the answer seems obvious as the AI wave continues to crest. The City Bar Presidential Task Force on Artificial Intelligence and Digital Technologies hosts Hon. Xavier Rodriguez, U.S. District Judge for the Western District of Texas, and Maura Grossman, a lawyer and scholar specializing in technology assisted review, to join Task Force member David Zaslowsky in giving that question a...

Muhammad Faridi, City Bar President, interviews Jethro Eisenstein, a key figure in the creation of the NYC’s Handschu Committee in response to NYPD "Red Squad" activities in the 1970s and 80s. Jethro shares the history of the Handschu litigation, a landmark case initiated in 1971 that imposed significant oversight on the NYPD’s investigation of political groups. Jethro recounts the origins of the...

In this podcast hosted by the City Bar Presidential Task Force on Artificial Intelligence and Digital Technologies, Alona Katz, Chief of the Virtual Currency Unit at the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office, alongside a panel of experts, discusses the growing issue of cryptocurrency investment scams, specifically 'pig butchering,' which one guest describes as “ a confidence scam and a romance scam...

Presidential Task Force on AI and Digital Technologies members Wendy Butler Curtis and Robert Mahari are joined by Cai GoGwilt, founder of Ironclad, to discuss the power and potential of Agentic AI. Their conversation explores the definitions, capabilities, and notable limitations of the emerging Large Language Models. Building on Forbes’ “intern” analogy, the co-hosts highlight the ways in which...

In this special episode we hear the Hon. Jed S. Rakoff – Senior Judge, United States District Court, Southern District of New York – deliver a speech to the Association entitled "The U.S. Supreme Court’s History as a Regressive Institution." Judge Rakoff’s speech is part of City Bar’s Benjamin N. Cardozo Lecture Series, which is inspired by the legacy of Benjamin N. Cardozo "and his love for the l...

An increasing number of states are enacting policies hostile to LGBTQ youth, like book bans and restrictions on participation in sports. Even in states like New York where there is greater state-level support for LGBTQ rights, similar policies aimed at stifling those rights have emerged at the local level. Amy Leipziger (Project Director, Free to Be Youth Project), Ashton Hessee (Legal Fellow, Fre...

The Presidential Task Force on AI and Digital Technologies’ Bob Schwinger hosts a discussion with fellow Task Force members Don Irwin and Tyler Yagman. They identify the key takeaways from the House Financial Services Committee’s June 5th congressional hearing about the tokenization of real-world assets, its relation to cryptocurrency, and its potential to improve market efficiency and transparenc...

President Muhammad Faridi hosts Rich Miller (former Chief of Energy Policy for New York City and former Vice President of Energy and Environmental Law at Con Edison) and Robie Craig (Senior Energy Council at the New York City Department of Citywide Administrative Services), Co-Chairs of the City Bar Energy Law Committee. The conversation touches on various aspects of energy policy and its relevanc...

In this episode of the New York City Bar Association podcast, hosted by Sara Chekroun and sponsored by the Animal Law Committee, the spotlight is on Steven Wise's pioneering legal career and his legacy with the Nonhuman Rights Project (NHRP). Guests Courtney Fern and Elizabeth Stein, both attorneys with NHRP, delve into Wise's groundbreaking legal strategies that fundamentally altered the framewor...

The metaverse isn’t just the future, it’s already here and growing in every direction. But with so many players and users expanding in the space, the boundaries between metaverse platforms are becoming more cumbersome and complex. Flora Lau and Terry Dugan of the New York City Bar Association Digital Technologies Task Force host Larry Goldberg, a pioneer in media accessibility, and Debbie Rosenbau...

Muhammad Faridi, President of the New York City Bar Association, is joined by Boaz Morag, a Counsel at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and one of the lead drafters of a recent City Bar report analyzing for the Office of the Legal Advisor in the U.S. Department of State three private international law treaties: the Hague Convention on Choice of Courts Agreements (COCA), the Hague Convention on the...

Hayley Gorenberg, co-chair of the LGBTQ Rights Committee, and Mary-Ellen La Rosa, Manager of Pipeline Initiatives and Education, discuss creating inclusive environments and understanding the broader social forces that contribute to inclusivity or lack thereof. They emphasize the importance of training oneself to recognize and dismantle exclusion dynamics, using respectful language, and embracing a...

Karyn A. Temple is the Senior Executive Vice President and Global General Counsel for the Motion Picture Association (MPA) and one of the world’s leading authorities on copyright and anti-piracy. Karyn oversees the MPA’s legal affairs and content protection efforts worldwide. Before joining the MPA, Karyn served more than eight years in the U.S. Copyright Office as the Register of Copyrights, wher...

On today’s podcast the City Bar’s Lawyer Assistance Program (LAP) hosts a discussion with Lara Gregory, an attorney, activist and community leader. Together with LAP Clinical Coordinator Michele Cuevas (JD, LCSW), Ms. Gregory talks about her roots in the Philippines and in the legal community as well as her experience as an AAPI woman lawyer. Ms. Gregory shared about the activism in support of the...

The New York City Bar Association is proud to welcome its next President, Muhammad U. Faridi. Besides being a longstanding, active member of the New York City Bar Association, Mr. Faridi is a Litigation Partner at Patterson, Belknap, Webb and Tyler. He serves as the independent civilian representative to the New York City Police Department's Handschu Committee, which regulates NYPD policies and pr...