Muhammad U. Faridi Nominated to Be New York City Bar Association President
Nominees for Leadership Positions Announced
New York, December 6, 2023 – Muhammad U. Faridi has been nominated as President of the New York City Bar Association. If elected at the City Bar’s annual meeting on May 21, 2024, Mr. Faridi will succeed current President Susan J. Kohlmann and be the first Muslim-American to hold the position.
The City Bar also announced its Nominating Committee’s slate of officers and new members of its Board of Directors.
Mr. Faridi is a Partner in the litigation department of Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP. He focuses his practice on complex commercial matters involving claims related to breaches of contract and commercial torts, and maintains an active pro bono practice across a wide variety of matters.
Mr. Faridi currently serves as the independent civilian representative to the New York City Police Department’s Handschu Committee, which regulates the NYPD’s policies and practices regarding investigations of political activity in compliance with a consent decree. He previously served on the New York City Mayor’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary.
At the City Bar, Mr. Faridi previously served as Vice President, Chair of the Board, Chair of the Capital Punishment Committee, Co-Chair of the Committee on the Recruitment and Retention of Lawyers, and on numerous other committees, including International Human Rights, the Rule of Law Task Force and the Mass Incarceration Task Force.
Mr. Faridi also serves on the boards of the Teak Fellowship, the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, the John Jay College Foundation, and the City University of New York School of Law, and is co-editor of Bloomberg’s Commercial Division Practice Guide.
Mr. Faridi received his BA, summa cum laude, from John Jay College of Criminal Justice and his JD from the City University of New York School of Law. He clerked for Judge Jack B. Weinstein, Senior U.S. District Judge in the Eastern District of New York, and he taught commercial litigation as an adjunct professor at Fordham University School of Law for five years.
“I am humbled and honored to be nominated as president of the New York City Bar Association,” said Mr. Faridi. “I will do my part in advancing the mission of the Association: to equip and mobilize a diverse legal profession to practice with excellence, promote reform of the law, and uphold the rule of law and access to justice. I look forward to continuing my work alongside the board of directors, committee leaders, and the staff at the City Bar.”
Sarah J. Berger, New York State Unified Court System; Tracee Davis, Seyfarth Shaw LLP; and Hon. Lillian Wan, Associate Justice, Appellate Division, Second Department, were nominated to serve one-year terms as the City Bar’s three Vice Presidents.
Paula Edgar, PGE Consulting Group LLC, and Joe Hamid, Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, were nominated to continue serving as Association Secretary and Association Treasurer, respectively.
The nominees for the Board of Directors Class of 2028 are Anta Cisse-Green, IEEE; Ana Alfonso, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP; Jeremy Feigelson, Metropolitan Transportation Authority; Michael Fernandez, Rivero Mestre LLP; and Karen Simmons, Brooklyn Law School.
The Candidates were nominated by the City Bar’s Nominating Committee: Roger Maldonado (chair), Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP; Brenda Correa, New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct; Allegra Glashausser, Federal Defenders of New York; Marjorie Peerce, Ballard Spahr LLP; Aisha Joseph, New York Law School; Christopher Wilds, Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP; and Sandra Park, New York State Attorney General’s Office.
