The Practice and Promise of Transitional Justice in Africa
Thursday, October 8, 2026 • Duration 57:02
Presented by the City Bar's African Affairs Committee, host Justin Loveland, a commercial litigator who previously served as a legal consultant to Seychelles' Truth, Reconciliation and National Unity Commission, is joined by four leading voices in transitional justice who have worked on or alongside truth commissions across the continent: Professor Ron Slye (Kenya and South Africa), the Honorable Bernard Georges (Seychelles), and Didier Gbery and Dr. Baba Jallow (The Gambia).
The panel discusses the legal standards truth commissions rely on and how formal findings differ from narrative truth. Panelists then compare what worked and what didn't in their own countries, from the Gambia's live-broadcast hearings and Kenya's women-only hearings to Seychelles' stalled follow-through, along with challenges like witness protection and cultural silence around sexual violence. The conversation closes on reparations: who should pay, whether perpetrators can be required to compensate victims, how The Gambia delivered interim relief while its commission was still hearing testimony, and why repair may extend well beyond money.
03:29 What Is Transitional Justice?
06:42 Legal Standards for Truth Commissions
13:41 The Gambia: Successes and Challenges
17:42 Building a National Conversation in the Gambia
21:07 Seychelles: A Unanimous Start, a Stalled Finish
24:23 Kenya: Women-Only Hearings and a Hidden Archive
32:12 Creating a Constituency for Reform
36:01 The Question of Reparations
41:00 Who Should Pay? Comparing Approaches
44:21 The Gambia's Reparations Act and Interim Relief
53:15 Reparations Beyond Money
56:21 Closing Thoughts
Social Well-Being in the Legal Profession
Thursday, September 24, 2026 • Duration 01:15:02
Our episode today features Mindfulness and Well-Being in Law Committee members Robye Margolius (director of wellbeing at Arnold & Porter) and Jordana Confino (founder and CEO of JC Coaching and Consulting). They discuss social wellbeing as a powerful but overlooked dimension of lawyer wellbeing, defined as having meaningful, supportive relationships and a sense of connection and contribution.
Robye and Jordana outline research linking social support to happiness, life satisfaction, reduced depression and anxiety, and improved physical health, and cite workplace findings that belonging boosts performance and retention. The conversation explores barriers in legal culture such as time pressure, transactional interactions, invulnerability norms, autonomy needs, and perfectionism, plus the effects of billable-hour incentives, hybrid work, phones, and AI on connection and mentorship.
Robye and Jordana offer practical individual strategies (micro-connections, recurring touchpoints, presence, boundaries) and organizational actions (leadership modeling, rituals, mentorship, monitoring workload, recognition), and highlight City Bar committees, events, and the Lawyers Assistance Program as connection resources.
Want to take a first step to improving your sense of social well-being? Join the Mindfulness and Well-Being in Law Committee on October 1 for a Japanese Tea Gathering. Go to nycbar.org/events to learn more and to register.
02:02 Defining Connection
04:30 Science of Flourishing
08:45 Why Connection Feels Hard
09:14 Sandcastle Trust Building
14:29 Billable Hour Reality
19:10 Culture and Perfectionism
25:30 Support Changes Perception
28:46 AI and Human Skills
32:47 Practical Connection Habits
35:27 Micro Moments and Weak Ties
38:14 Match Your Social Battery
39:10 Small Discomfort Wins
43:00 Low Hanging Outreach
44:25 Phone Free Presence
51:27 Boundaries and Capacity
54:06 Culture Change Levers
01:02:02 Managers Shape Safety
01:06:09 Bar Associations as Third Places
01:10:43 One Small Action
AI in Law Practice
Thursday, September 17, 2026 • Duration 01:32:09
Lorraine McGowen brings us today’s podcast from the City Bar’s Presidential Task Force on Artificial Intelligence and Digital Technologies. The discussion covers expanding legal use cases (research, drafting, due diligence, e-discovery, deposition and hearing prep, judicial chambers), ROI concerns due to verification burdens, and persistent hallucination risks. Panelists emphasize “trust nothing and verify everything,” including checking citations, quotations, and whether law remains good. We review ethics and court-rule developments (New York Part 161; proposed California SB 574), sanctions trends, confidentiality and privilege risks from public AI tools, client restrictions and protocol controls, record retention and supervision frameworks, international implications such as the EU AI Act’s risk categories and penalties, and the need for AI literacy and ongoing training.
Lorraine McGowen is Co-Chair of City Bar’s Task Force and a Partner at Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe. She is joined by these experts in the field:
Maura Grossman – Research Professor, School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo
David Keyko – Partner, Pillsbury, Winthrop, Shaw, Pittman
Sabina Ahmed Liconte – Head of Legal and Chief Compliance Officer, the Americas, ICBC Standard Bank Group
Adele Hogan – Partner, Hogan Law Associates
Ann Heo – Co-Chief of Discovery Compliance and Litigation Unit and Chief of the Prescription Drug Investigations Unit, Officer of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor for the City of New York
Kristin Baylis – Senior Technology Counsel, Orrick
00:00 Why AI Matters Now
03:08 Meet the Expert Panel
05:56 AI Use Cases Explosion
08:36 ROI and Productivity Wins
10:23 Hallucinations and Prompting
12:16 Will Hallucinations Disappear
13:38 Training and Trial Sim Tools
15:07 Ethics Rules and Sanctions
23:03 Court Orders and Disclosures
25:34 International Impact EU AI Act
34:59 Client Disclosure and Engagements
37:43 Firm Protocols and Controls
43:08 Technical Guardrails for Clients
45:45 AI Disclosure Duties
46:47 Joint Defense Protocols
47:49 Public Tools Pitfalls
51:23 Enterprise Versus Public
53:44 Transactional Verification
01:03:39 Litigation AI Sensitivities
01:08:18 Confidentiality Guardrails
01:14:58 Agentic AI Vendor Risks
01:20:09 In House Versus Firms
01:27:24 Key Takeaways Closing
The Legal Response to 9/11 – 44th Street Podcast
Tuesday, September 8, 2026 • Duration 50:12
The horrific attacks on September 11, 2001, left New York City in dire need of help. Families were searching for missing loved ones, and those who lost loved ones could not access support without a death certificate. Small businesses and street vendors in Lower Manhattan lost their livelihoods overnight. Immigrants were targeted and detained.
The legal needs were tremendous, varied, and urgent, and the legal community stepped up.
On this inaugural episode of the 44th Street Podcast, marking the 25th anniversary of 9/11, host and City Bar President Matthew Diller reflects on the unprecedented volume of pro bono legal service that followed the attacks. He is joined by three lawyers — Anthony Crowell, Maria Imperial, and Janet Sabel — who helped lead the response. They share stories from that work, about the City Bar's role as a coordinating hub for volunteers and legal service providers across the city, the family assistance center at Pier 94, the triage system built at the Metropolitan Detention Center, and the innovative use of the internet to expand outreach.
They also reflect on the emotional cost of the work and what it taught them about the profession's capacity to show up when needed.
Pema Sherpa: On Making Mindfulness Practical for Lawyers
Tuesday, September 1, 2026 • Duration 43:26
Pema Sherpa is a mindfulness researcher and keynote speaker who helps organizations boost employee well-being and performance. Born and raised in Nepal, she studied the mind-body relationship at Harvard University and teaches mindfulness in a way that's both philosophically grounded and useful for people in demanding careers. She co-authored The Daily Buddhist with her husband, pairing short, daily teachings with practical, modern application.
Presented by the City Bar's Mindfulness & Well-Being in Law Committee, Pema talks with committee members Katiuska Moure and Nancy Batterman about her upbringing, her path into mindfulness research, and some practical keys lawyers and law students can use to build healthier daily habits even before they're ready to meditate.
Selected Links from the Episode:
The Daily Buddhist (book): https://thedailybuddhist.net/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/daily.buddhist/
00:00 Introduction
02:02 Pema's Journey
06:28 Harvard and Career Pivot
08:54 Immigrant Law Student Challenges
12:38 Tools for Students
16:44 Bringing Resilience into Legal Practice
20:09 Body Basics and the Nervous System
24:30 "Work With What You Have"
30:21 Meditation Isn't the Entry Point
33:28 Daily Buddhist Resources
39:44 Closing Thoughts and Committee Resources
The Law School of Tomorrow: AI and the Future of Lawyer Training
Thursday, July 2, 2026 • Duration 47:21
Katherine Hughes hosts the latest podcast from the City Bar’s Presidential Task Force on Artificial Intelligence and Digital Technologies. She is joined by WashU Law Dean Stefanie Lindquist and AI Collaborative Co-Director Oliver Roberts to discuss how generative AI is reshaping law school teaching, assessment, and professional preparation.
Dean Lindquist describes her wake-up call about student AI use, making AI a central dean priority, forming an AI task force, partnering with Roberts, and hiring an LLM engineer to support experimentation and tool-building. Roberts traces early experiences with hallucinated citations and argues AI education must go beyond AI regulation to hands-on tool use across legal workflows, core terminology, tool selection, and explicit ethics (competence, confidentiality, supervision, and overreliance).
They discuss institutional guardrails such as eliminating take-home exams, using simulations, workflow-based pedagogy, and new assessment ideas like oral exams and quizzing students on submitted work. They also note scholarship and journal pressures and conclude that lawyers who can’t use AI will be replaced by those who can.
02:13 Why AI Became Institutional
03:50 Oliver’s AI Origin Story
05:34 Faculty Misconceptions
07:26 JD Learning Outcomes
09:58 Core AI Competencies
13:04 Schoolwide Guardrails
16:56 Teaching Ethics through Scenarios
21:19 Hidden Ethics Pitfalls
23:56 Rethinking Assessment
27:10 Drafting and Disclosure
32:05 Workflows In Practice
35:41 Handling Faculty Skepticism
38:08 AI In Clinics
40:10 Scholarship And Journals
43:05 Closing Advice
Noise in Nature and Law
Thursday, June 18, 2026 • Duration 52:42
Environmental lawyer and Animal Law Committee member Robin Happel hosts a discussion on noise pollution and noise law with Jamie Banks of Quiet Communities and ocean noise researcher Vanessa ZoBell. Jamie explains how chronic leaf-blower and land-care noise led her to found Quiet Communities. She describes gaps in federal, state, and local noise regulation, focusing on the 1972 Noise Control Act, the rise and 1982 defunding of EPA’s Office of Noise Abatement and Control, and Quiet Communities’ lawsuit to reactivate the program. Vanessa outlines major ocean noise sources (commercial shipping and seismic air-gun surveys) and impacts on marine life, including stress, masking, behavioral changes, and examples such as post-9/11 stress hormone reductions in right whales and sonar-linked beaked whale strandings. They discuss challenges of relying on A-weighted averages, low-frequency noise, communication barriers, voluntary and incentive-based programs, electrification of equipment, vessel speed reduction benefits, and long-term California soundscape findings tied to economic events and marine heatwaves, plus vulnerable human populations and environmental justice concerns.
00:42 Jamie on Quiet Communities
04:17 Vanessa on Ocean Acoustics
06:19 Major Ocean Noise Sources
08:34 Noise Control Act History
13:30 How Noise Harms Marine Life
18:23 Ecological Impacts on Land
20:34 Rethinking Noise Metrics
27:14 Shipping Slowdown Success
33:48 Incentives and Federal Tools
40:31 Decadal Soundscape Study
46:29 Vulnerable Groups and Justice
The Server Test and Substantial Similarity: Assessing the Second and Ninth Circuit’s Divergent Approaches to Copyright Law
Thursday, June 4, 2026 • Duration 47:33
In this episode, a panel of legal experts discusses the different approaches taken by the Second and Ninth Circuits on two key areas of copyright law: substantial similarity and the Server Test.
Presented by the New York City Bar Association’s Copyright & Literary Property and Entertainment Law Committees, the panel explores recent and emerging case law and the Second and Ninth Circuits’ divergent approaches to analyzing substantial similarity, a key element of copyright infringement, as well as the ongoing debate surrounding the Server Test, which addresses whether the posting of online content constitutes a “display” within the meaning of the Copyright Act.
Moderated by Dwayne Amos, Associate at Kasowitz LLP, the episode features a panel of leading copyright litigators and experts, including:
• Barry Werbin, Counsel, Herrick Feinstein LLP
• Aaron Moss, Partner, Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP and author of the Copyright Lately blog
• Marc Lebowitz, Principal, Lebowitz Law Office
• James Bartolomei, Of Counsel, Duncan Firm
The wide-ranging discussion covers the practical implications of these divergent approaches for copyright owners, litigators, content creators, online platforms, forum selection, free speech, and the application of copyright law nationwide.
This episode was produced by Jose Landivar, Senior Associate at Coates IP LLP, with contributions from Philippa Loengard, Executive Director, Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts and Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School, and support from the New York City Bar Association Communications Team.
Copyright Lately: Creative Law for Curious People – www.copyrightlately.com
The Genius Act and Payment Stablecoins: A Regulatory Deep Dive
Thursday, April 23, 2026 • Duration 32:02
Tiffany Smith (WilmerHale) speaks with Beth Haddock (Warburton Advisers) and Boaz Goldwater (Davis Polk) about Treasury’s notice of proposed rulemaking implementing the Genius Act’s framework for regulating payment stablecoins, focusing on guidance for state regimes to qualify as “substantially similar” to the federal approach.
This podcast episode from the City Bar’s Presidential Task Force on AI and Digital Technologies compares the dual federal/state structure to banking and securities regulation, and describes “uniform” requirements versus areas with limited state calibration (e.g., capital, liquidity, supervisory procedures). We discuss the inter-agency stablecoin certification review committee’s discretion, challenges from evolving OCC standards, and the ten billion outstanding issuance threshold that triggers transition to OCC supervision while retaining state oversight, with possible waivers for certain pre-existing state regimes. We highlight key ambiguities for issuers, including moving federal benchmarks, supervisory capacity, and unresolved capital/liquidity measurement issues.
01:38 Genius Act Rulemaking Overview
03:08 Dual Federal State Framework
04:17 Why a State Pathway
09:31 State Discretion in Practice
11:31 Managing Moving Goalposts
13:34 Certification Review Committee
15:56 Reserve Capital Liquidity Rules
19:05 Crossing the 10 Billion Threshold
23:42 Supervision and Enforcement Capacity
25:33 Choosing State vs Federal Oversight
28:20 Open Questions and Comment Priorities
Richard Tuske's 50 Years in the City Bar Law Library
Friday, April 17, 2026 • Duration 01:02:17
In this episode, beloved City Bar figure Richard Tuske reflects on his remarkable 50-year journey with the City Bar Law Library, from starting as a page in 1972 to serving today as Senior Director of Library Operations on the eve of retirement.
Along the way, he shares vivid stories with Legal History Committee Chair Abigail Nitka on the library’s transformation into one of the most prominent legal libraries in the world—from towering stacks to the dawn of digital research and early Westlaw and Lexis—along with behind-the-scenes anecdotes on the history of City Bar membership, unusual research requests, the auction of a remarkable rare-books collection, a failed merger attempt, and the library’s technological evolution.
00:00 Podcast Welcome
01:03 Early Page Years
07:30 From Stacks To Screens
14:53 Computer Revolution Begins
19:05 Unusual Research Request
25:24 Famous City Bar Members Spotlight
30:18 Salt Mines Preservation
33:36 What Remains Today
36:59 Computers Transform Research
41:08 Library Merger Attempt
43:52 Rare Books Collection & Auction
51:30 Future Library After Retirement
58:29 Legacy and Farewell
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