New York Women's Bar Association

The New York Women's Bar Association ("NYWBA") is a non-profit organization devoted to improving the status of women in society, educating women lawyers and assisting them in professional development and advancement, and promoting the fair and equal administration of justice. The Association accomplishes these goals through the work of its committees, the presentation of continuing legal education programs, and the evaluation of judicial candidates. Through its affiliation with the Women's Bar Association of the State of New York ("WBASNY"), the Association also reviews and comments on proposed legislation and policy initiatives at the state, federal and international levels that are of concern to women and children.

Founders

The New York Women's Bar Association was founded in 1934 and incorporated as a not-for-profit bar association in 1935. Eleven women signed the Certificate of Incorporation:

  • Beatrice Fliegel was a graduate of NYU Law School in 1922.
  • Doris Silver Freeman
  • Lillian B. Garrell was admitted to the New York bar in 1933.
  • Estelle Ruth Grollman was admitted to the New York bar in 1933.
  • Margaret Fuller Karlin was a graduate of NYU Law School in 1925 and was admitted to the New York bar in 1926. She was married to Ralph Kerbs, also a graduate of NYU Law, Class of 1920. She was a lawyer for and officer of the Tenants Association of New York, which in 1960 (when she was vice president) had a membership of 4,000. She was President of the NYU Law Alumni Association during the 1950s and 1960s. After she died in 1982, a scholarship was established in her name at NYU Law School.
  • Minnie Kelter (Goldberg) was a graduate of Hunter College and NYU Law School. A founder of NYWBA, she went on to become a Director of the Bronx Women's Bar Association, President of the Bronx Professional and Business Women's Group, and a member of the Ulster County Bar Association. Her husband Maurice Goldberg was an Assistant Attorney General for New York State. She moved from New York City to Woodstock in 1948 and died in 1960.
  • Lauretta Rose was admitted to the New York bar in 1932. Starting in the mid 1930s, she served as a referee in the determination of real estate property rights and transfers.
  • Hilda G. Schwartz was a founder and past president.
  • Florence Perlow Shientag (Frankel) was a founder and past president.
  • Freda Spinard (Baileson) was a 1922 graduate of NYU Law School (LLB). After serving as a founder of NYWBA, Ms. Spinard was elected president of the Queens Women's Bar Association in January 1936. She died in 1947.
  • Rose Lehman Stein was a founder and past president.

History

The New York Women's Bar Association was formed in 1934 after several of our founders were denied membership by the New York City Bar Association. When Hilda G. Schwartz (later Judge Schwartz) applied, she was turned down and told, "We have no restroom facilities for women." Our 1935 Certificate of Incorporation, filed on Ms. Schwartz's blue backs, contained all of the provisions found in the City Bar's Certificate, including all of the "purpose" provisions of a full-service bar association – with a single additional provision, which reads, "To define and elevate the status of women."

The NYWBA held its first annual reception on May 25, 1936, welcoming 50 new women lawyers. The event was at the George Washington Hotel, as women were then not welcome at any bar association facilities.

In 1937, the New York City Bar Association allowed the NYWBA to hold its second reception at its building, and more than 200 women gathered for a triumphant celebration of the first time in sixty-eight years when women were allowed in that facility on equal terms with men. The following May, the City Bar voted to accept women members, and then-President Stein expressed the hope that "other bar associations which still stubbornly keep out a large group of lawyers because of their sex will do likewise." Many of our Founders were among the first group of thirteen women sworn in as City Bar members.

References
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