Biography

Justice Betty Weinberg Ellerin, who is currently a Senior Counsel with the firm of Alston & Bird, retired from the bench on December 31, 2005, after service as a Justice of the Appellate Division, First Department for over 20 years. She was the first woman appointed to that bench, in March 1985, and in 1999, she was the first woman to serve as Presiding Justice of that Court. From January 1982 to March 1985, she served as Deputy Chief Administrative Judge of the State of New York charged with primary responsibility for administering the operation of all the trial courts within the City of New York, involving more than 425 judges and over 4,700 non-judicial personnel, again the first woman to hold such position. She was elected to the bench in 1976, after many years of service as a law clerk to various state court judges and, prior to her appointment as the City's Administrative Judge, she was appointed the Judge-in-Charge of the complex handling all cases in which the City of New York was a party. During the two years that she headed the program, she herself settled over 2,500 cases. While on the Appellate Division, she sat on innumerable appeals dealing with a broad range of insurance issues as well as tort cases of all types.

Justice Ellerin, who is a past President of the National Association of Women Judges and longtime Chair of its National Task Force on Gender Bias in the Courts, is also Chair of the N.Y. State Judicial Committee on Women In The Courts, which is charged with responsibility for implementing the recommendations made by the former New York Task Force. She is a Trustee Associate of New York University, was Co-President of NYU Alumni Association and served as President of the NYU Alumni Federation for many years. She is a past Vice-President and member of the Executive Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of N.Y. and also served as the first Chair of its Committee on Women in the Courts and as a past chair of its Symposia Committee. She is a past president of the New York Women's Bar Association and is a founder and a Director of the Women's Bar of the State of New York, as well as a founding member and Director of JALBCA (Judges and Lawyers Breast Cancer Alert). She is a member of the New York State court system's legislatively mandated Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics, served on the Matrimonial Commission, established by the Chief Judge, and was a member of the New York State Sentencing Guidelines Committee. Among her numerous other activities, she is a member of the Board of Directors of HIAS, Inc.; a former Director of the Women's Forum and lectures extensively in conjunction with bar association and court sponsored educational programs and for many years served as chair of the Civil Curriculum Committee for the Annual Judicial Education Seminars. In the summer of 2001, she was a member of the faculty at the International Law Program sponsored by Hofstra Law School in cooperation with Nice School of Law, in Nice, France. After her retirement from the bench, she was appointed Vice-Chair to the Committee on Character and Fitness of the First Department and most recently has been named to the statewide Advisory Committee on Civil Practice.

Her innumerable awards include the A.B.A. Commission on Women in the Profession's Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award; Founders Award of the Women's Bar of the State of New York, of which she was the first recipient; the Florence E. Allen Award presented jointly by the N.Y. School of Law and the New York Women's Bar Association; the National Conference of Metropolitan Courts' Tom Clark Award; the Harlan Fiske Stone Award presented by the Association of Trial Lawyers of the City of New York, the first woman to be so honored; and the Annual Law Day Award of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association. In 2004, the Women's Bar Association of the State of New York at its 25th anniversary gala dinner established the Betty Weinberg Ellerin Mentoring Award, for her leadership and inspiration to the women of the legal profession. In 2006, she received the prestigious Robert B. McKay Award from the N.Y.U. School of Law "in recognition of her distinguished service and extraordinary accomplishments in the advancement of justice."

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Hon. Betty Weinberg Ellerin, A.B.A.: Previous Margaret Brent Women Law. Achievement Award Recipients, https://perma.cc/J4FS-G47S.