A report on a February research visit to Montenegro by a four-member team from the Swedish and New York City Bar Associations has found that while the laws governing the press are generally satisfactory, “the relationships between the independent press and the government and between the independent press and pro-government press are permeated by polarization and antagonism.”

“The Association is an extraordinarily complicated institution. Even a two-year term does not enable presidents to master its intricacies,” Michael Cooper said recently. Mike was president of the New York City Bar Association from 1998 to 2000, and I had reached out to him and some other former City Bar presidents for their thoughts on our outgoing Executive Director, Barbara Berger Opotowsky.

Calling Guantanamo a “stain on our nation’s reputation” and “a serious threat to our national security,” the New York City Bar Association has written to President Barack Obama urging him to take Executive action to release or transfer the prison’s 86 detainees previously cleared for release and “to take concrete steps to restart the process toward closure of the Guantanamo Bay facility, including the eventual prosecution, transfer or release of the remaining individuals currently held there.”