Annual Meeting 2025 Remarks of Executive Director Bret Parker

Good evening. As you’ve heard from Kevin and Joe, the City Bar has so many incredible people doing so many different and impactful things. Trying to highlight any subset of them feels inadequate and usually leads me to inadvertently leave out some names or activities from the past year. Tonight, I’m going to focus on saying a few thank yous and issuing a call to action.

First, thanks to Kevin, Joe, Muhammad and our volunteer leadership, especially the officers and Board members whose terms are ending, who Kevin mentioned, and the committee chairs whose terms end this summer – we all owe them our appreciation for giving so much time and effort to this organization.

Second, my thanks to our amazing staff, some of whom you see frequently and know very well, and some of whom you rarely see because they are behind the scenes, including our new CFO Cecilia Sakosky who joined the City Bar earlier this year. The staff here work really hard and care deeply about the impact the City Bar makes on the profession and the public. I’m so fortunate to be able to work with them every day so I’d like all the City Bar staff to stand and be recognized.

Third, a special thank you to our beloved librarian Richard Tuske who will be retiring at the end of the calendar year, more than 50 years after he joined the City Bar in 1972 as a Library Page. He left in 1977 to pursue a music career and held a series of jobs until returning to the legal world to work at a law firm in 1980. The following year he re-joined the City Bar as a Reference Assistant where he has held several positions of increasing responsibility over the decades.

To describe Richard as our librarian (his current official title is Senior Director of Library Operations), does not adequately describe Richard’s role at the City Bar. He is our historian, tour guide, voice of calm, knower of all City Bar history and just a wonderful decent human. I am so grateful for you, Richard, and it’s going to be hard to imagine the City Bar without you.

Finally, a call to action.

Sometimes, in the day-to-day bustle of helping the legal profession to practice with excellence, it’s easy to forget our “why”? Why was the City Bar created and what is its purpose? As part of our strategic planning, we’ve been thinking about our mission and how it fits in today’s world. The recent developments coming out of D.C. have prompted us to ask ourselves what should the City Bar, a non-partisan organization, do in the face of such significant attacks on the rule of law?

Kevin mentioned the founding of the City Bar and our history serves as a guide on how we should act today. In 1870, Samuel Tilden (the first City Bar Vice President), in response to a corruption scandal that impacted the judiciary, said the following during the creation of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York:

“The Bar if it is to continue to exist, if it would restore itself to the dignity and honor which it once possessed, must be bold in defence, and, if need be, bold in aggression.”

This great reminder is literally right under my nose. Right below me in one of the most prominent spots in the House of the Association.

To be clear, we don’t mean physical aggression. Back at the time of the Association’s founding, it meant eliminating patronage and ensuring we had a judiciary free from undue influence. In today’s context, it means speaking up

• when the rule of law is under attack,
• when threats and physical attacks are made against the judiciary, or there are calls for impeachment based solely on disagreement with rulings, all of which jeopardize judges’ independence,
• when lawyers are being coerced into taking cases (or not taking cases) that the administration doesn’t like,
• and when basic rights such as freedom of speech, due process and equal treatment are under constant threat.

Our members get it and, following Samuel Tilden’s call to action, they are boldly and aggressively doing something about it. The City Bar has been helping to lead the charge of bar associations around the country. We have continued our longstanding condemnation of attacks on judges. We spoke out against the President’s Executive Orders earlier this year targeting law firms, and mobilized over 50 bar associations across the country to sign on to a statement. We spearheaded amicus brief filings in cases brought by impacted law firms, again joined by numerous bar associations across the country.

Just a few weeks ago, approximately 350 people attended a Rule of Law program right here in the Meeting Hall and then on Law Day approximately 2,000 people attended a Foley Square rally in support of the rule of law that we helped organize with other groups. It was truly a wonderful event. (Special thanks to the Rule of Law Task Force, chaired by Mary Kahn, former City Bar President Sheila Boston, who was the MC of the rally, Co-chair of the Council on the Profession Chris Wilds, who worked with the various rally organizers and, along with Council Co-Chair Mary Lu Bilek and others, organized the Meeting Hall event along with Chair of the Task Force on the Independence of Lawyers and Judges, Chris Pioch.

I have been energized and inspired by the support, grateful for the unwavering commitment of our members and staff, and hopeful for the increased recognition of the importance of bar associations.

My call to action is simple – join us.

We are the preeminent place for networking, CLEs and programs, committee work and professional development, just to name a few things folks do here at the City Bar.

We continue to galvanize the legal profession to engage in pro bono through the City Bar Justice Center and the Vance Center. We provide assistance through the Lawyer Assistance Program and remain committed to providing equal opportunities for a diverse profession and we recognize that there is still work to be done on that front.

But none of that is possible without the rule of law.

So even if you never step foot in this building, join us. If you already belong, tell 3 colleagues to do the same. Your support enables us to fight for the dignity of the profession and a system of justice that treats everyone equally, fairly and with due process.

In some ways, it’s deeply troubling that after over 155 years, the City Bar is still fighting some of the same battles we were facing in 1870, but given our amazing membership and dedicated staff I have no doubt that we will continue to be bold.

Thank you.