The fabled Manhattan skyline twinkled across the water as if in a fairy tale. A huge crowd of admirers—mainly lawyers and judges, came to celebrate and honor a very important woman, with flowers, champagne, delicious food, and with loving and funny and very touching speeches. The evening was organized by the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York.

The Honorable Betty Weinberg Ellerin blazed the trail for women within the judiciary. She was the first woman appointed as Associate Justice of the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department and the first woman to serve as the Presiding Justice of the Appellate Division, First Department. Justice Ellerin has served as president of the National Association of Women Judges and is the long-term Chair of the New York State Judicial Committee on Women in the Courts.

Justice Ellerin has served as a mentor, teacher, guide, and trusted counselor to hundreds of attorneys and judges and is a founding member of the group that honored her last night—The Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York. (WBASNY).

Judge Betty is not only a woman, she is also a feminist and her work and principles have touched many lives and changed the practice of law in her lifetime. As Susan L. Bender wrote: She is a “brilliant jurist, a feminist, and most important, a woman who cares for the fundamental principles of fairness and justice.”