Dear Guild friends,
Please join us on Friday, May 2 for the chapter's annual fundraising event, Spring Fling 2025!
We are excited to gather again this year to catch up on victories, worthy struggles and the pressing challenges these times present. We will mark our 88th year and honor this year's Guild Champions of Justice with great food, drink, music, and good company.
This year we are thrilled to honor Justice Debra James, ALAA founder Gerald Lefcourt, ALAA President Lisa Ohta and Human Rights attorney Vanessa Ramos. Our Law Student honoree is Brooklyn Law's Emily Rieger, and the first annual Holly Maguigan Legal Observer Award recipient is CUNY Law student Jonathan Guadian. Scroll down to learn more about our amazing honorees.
Our venue is the historic Angel Orensanz Foundation at 172 Norfolk Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
Join us to toast our anniversary, celebrate the honorees and support the New York City Chapter’s ongoing commitment to people’s law.
We look forward to seeing you on May 2!
Tickets are available online here: SpringFling2025
Sponsorships & Journal Ads are now closed.
About the Honorees:
Justice Debra A. James received her B.A. degree in American government and politics cum laude in 1975, Cornell University, and was awarded her J.D. degree in 1978, Cornell Law School. Upon graduating law school, James worked as an Assistant Corporation Counsel, New York City Law Department, in which she represented municipal agencies and corporations in New York state and federal trial and appellate courts.
Elected to the New York City Civil Court In 1994, James managed thousands of lawsuits in a wide array of civil cases. During her tenure in that court of limited jurisdiction, she presided over legions of residential landlord tenant summary proceedings. In 2002, James was appointed acting NYS State Supreme Court justice, and in 2013, she was elected to a full term on that court. During her tenure on the Supreme Court, she has rendered thousands of opinions, most affirmed on appeal. Her decisions have upheld first amendment rights in a SLAPP lawsuit; found affordability to be a proper factor in establishing annual rent guidelines; and dismissed, on the basis of forum non conveniens, a lawsuit that sought to re-litigate in New York State court an $8.65 billion judgment rendered by an Ecuadorian court in a lawsuit wherein indigenous Ecuadorians sought remediation for environmental harm caused by the operations of an American oil company .
A resident of Central Harlem for almost 40 years, James remains active in many bar and bench associations. She was past chair of the Women in Prison Committee, National Association of Women Judges, New York chapter, which during her tenure advocated the issuance of the Governor’s Executive Order barring the shackling of prisoners during childbirth, and the passage of New York’s Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act. In 2019, she served as president of the Association of Supreme Court Justices of the State of New York, whose primary mission is to maintain the independence of the judiciary. A bibliophile since grade school, James has been a member of a Harlem based book discussion group since its inception 42 years ago. She is also an avid jazz and Latin music fan and social dancer.
Gerald B. Lefcourt is a criminal defense lawyer in private practice. He was founder of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, the first public defenders union in the country, and in 1968 was fired by the Legal Aid Society for his union activity. He went on to be a founder of the legendary New York Law Commune, a collective movement law office which inspired hundreds of activists to become lawyers, and a leading member of the NYC National Lawyers Guild.
Gerry was lead defense counsel in the massive conspiracy prosecution of 21 Black Panthers, where defendants were quickly acquitted by a jury after what was then the longest trial in New York history. As a noted private criminal defense attorney, his representation has spanned a spectrum, from Yippie founder Abbie Hoffman, Black Panthers, entertainment moguls and white-collar defendants. For 20 years he was a member of the statewide Commission on Judicial Nomination, which recommends to the Governor a slate of candidates for the New York Court of Appeals.
He is currently on the Magistrate Selection Committee of the Southern District U.S. District Court. He is a past president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and other criminal defense bar formations. During his presidency of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Foundation, the foundation underwrote the filing fees for pardon applications of hundreds of incarcerated persons seeking relief from the Obama administration.
During the 2020 racial justice protests, Gerry was one of the organizers of NACDL’s national “First Amendment Strike Force”. Gerry received his J.D. from Brooklyn Law School and an LL.M from New York University School of Law.
Lisa Ohta is the President of the Association of Legal Advocates and Attorneys - UAW Local 2325 (formerly the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys), which in the last decade has grown to a labor union of more than 3,500 members at 34 public defender and civil legal services organizations in New York from its beginnings in 1969 representing staff attorneys at the Legal Aid Society. During Lisa’s presidency, a wave of organizing by workers in this sector has culminated in the historic organizing of non-union public defender organizations, which had been designed as “runaway shops” to evade union representation after the union’s struggle against then-mayor Rudy Giuliani in 1994.
Lisa has worked with members to bargain successful contracts, organize strikes, achieve historic settlements, and lift the standards for legal services workers and clients across the industry. She started her legal career in the Staten Island Neighborhood Office of the Legal Aid Society defending tenants in housing court at the Legal Aid Society, after obtaining her J.D. at the City University of New York School of Law. In May 2024, she was subpoenaed as union president to testify to the Education and Workforce Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, which sought to investigate the union’s adoption of a “Resolution Calling for a Ceasefire in Gaza, an End to the Israeli Occupation of Palestine, and Support for Workers’ Political Speech,” in a preview of the New McCarthyism.
Vanessa Ramos currently presides the Asociación Americana de Juristas (AAJ) an NGO in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council focusing on Latin America and the Caribbean. AAJ is affiliated with IADL (International Association of Democratic Lawyers) and works in solidarity with NLG. Throughout the years, Vanessa has worked, among others, to uphold AAJ’s principles of self-determination of peoples, action against imperialism, fascism, colonialism, neocolonialism and against racial discrimination; denounced discrimination against women, LGBTQ+, indigenous peoples, afro descendants and national minorities; supported sovereignty of States over their natural resources; the defense and promotion of human rights; and solidarity with jurists persecuted for their action in favor of the principles expressed here.
Vanessa has been a strong advocate for the independence of Puerto Rico, Western Sahara, and Palestine. Every year, she appears as a petitioner in the colonial case of Puerto Rico, before the Special Committee on Decolonization of the UN, and at the 4th Commission of the General Assembly on the Western Sahara. In the last few years, Vanessa and members of AAJ have participated in the meetings of the UN Commission on the Status of Women and organized side events in collaboration with IADL. During CSW 69 in 2025, she organized the side event, Feminist Justice: Fascism, the far right, and impact on women's rights.
Vanessa has been an international observer of elections in El Salvador and Ecuador, and NLG observer in protests in NYC. In 2024-2025, Vanessa and AAJ organized virtual conferences on the use of lawfare for political persecution in Puerto Rico, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil.
Vanessa received a B.A. and a Juris Doctor from the University of Puerto Rico. On a personal note, she loves cats.
Jonathan Guadian is a 2L at CUNY School of Law and an active member of the CUNY NLG Executive Board. As a Guild member, Jonathan believes in the importance of wielding the Guild’s work to be in solidarity with social justice movements everywhere. A former community organizer from Dallas, Texas, he is working towards becoming a public defender to bring the fiercest representation possible for his community in Texas. Jonathan is an active member of the Chapter’s Mass Defense Legal Observer Program, observing at numerous demonstrations throughout NYC. He believes every protest for social justice in New York City should have legal observers present and ready to protect people's rights. Jonathan is the father of a 7-year-old Great Pyrenees puppy and the proud uncle of three beautiful, brown babies.
Emily Rieger is a dedicated legal professional and Juris Doctor candidate at Brooklyn Law School (Class of 2025) with a strong focus on criminal defense, advocacy, and social justice. She has gained extensive experience through her work with The Bronx Defenders, the Office of the Appellate Defender, and various legal clinics, where she has represented clients in post-conviction and pretrial proceedings. Emily is also a recipient of the Edward V. Sparer Fellowship and the co-president of the BLS Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. She has helped build NLG’s presence on Brooklyn Law School’s campus through collaborative events with other student groups, organized the second annual Disorientation, and has assisted in hosting Legal Observer trainings on campus, encouraging students to become more involved in the larger NLG-NYC Chapter. Emily will start her legal career at The Legal Aid Society’s Criminal Defense Practice in the Fall.
Best regards,
NLG-NYC