WBASNY Virtual Convention 2021 Journal

A Tribute to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The theme for WBASNY this year is Empowered Women, Empowering Women. We can think of few other persons in our profession who capture this principle more than Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The Journal Subcommittee of the Convention Committee asked members to submit memories, anecdotes or photographs of their encounters with Justice Ginsburg. We trust you will enjoy the following contributions and hope that they inspire you for the future. I was able to see Scalia/Ginsburg , a unique opera about the relationship between Justice Scalia and Justice Ginsburg, written and scored by attorney/composer Derrick Wang, at the Glimmerglass Festival in 2017. I paid a little extra to get tickets for the night Justice Ginsburg would speak after the show. She talked for about half an hour about how much she loved opera, how much it meant to her and her husband, how it strengthened her relationship with Justice Scalia, and how it was common interests like that that made it easy for all the justices to toss their differences aside. It was a really special event for me because it was so intimate. This absolute powerhouse of a woman who's had this brilliant career told deeply personal stories about her passions and relationships. She laughed and I think she might have cried at one particularly sweet story. I had just finished my first year summer internship and was going back to school the next week so the last thing I wanted to do was talk about law. But if you have the chance to see RBG, you take it. She didn't talk about law at all. She seemed like she was a really private person so I was really glad I got to see her in a different light. She was so kind, gentle, warm, and powerful and I’ve definitely been trying to copy her presence since officially entering the profession. It was the year 1993 and she had just been appointed to the US Supreme Court. I had been serving on the State Supreme Court since 1990. In the 9th District there were no other women at that time and she was my inspiration. At the event we also took mother and daughter pictures. I felt I had to overcome many obstacles and prejudices like she did and just went full speed ahead and never looked back. I am now the only Judge to be serving a third term in the district and love what I do. I have had the same passion she had of fairness and fighting prejudice, from the date I was fired from my first job for being pregnant to the day I became a state Supreme Court judge. Morgan R. Mayer (Thousand Islands Chapter)

Hon. Joan B. Lefkowitz (Westchester Chapter)