New York, NY, Wednesday, November 27, 2024 – The Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York (“WBASNY”) has adopted its Legislative Priorities for the 2025 Legislative Session. Our list of priorities includes essential issues identified during past legislative sessions that align with WBASNY’s mission to make life better for all women in society. Our priorities will serve as a roadmap for the year ahead but will by no means preclude WBASNY from identifying other issues of importance for our members and our mission.

This year, our legislative priorities include:

Valuation of Human Life in Judicial Proceedings, Settlements, and Jury Awards, Including:

• Passage of the Grieving Families Act: WBASNY strongly supports amending the Estates, Powers, and Trusts Law (EPTL) § 5-4.3 with the passage of the Grieving Families Act. Currently, and for the past 177 years, New York’s wrongful death statute recognizes mostly pecuniary injuries, which are primarily based on a working male’s age, health, earning capacity, and life expectancy. This means, that excluded from the calculations is the actual value of someone who works in the home (homemakers), infants, women who often earn less than their male counterparts, minorities who often earn less than their white counterparts, the infirm, mentally ill, disabled, and elderly. Adoption of the Grieving Families Act in New York would right the wrong of historical discrimination. WBASNY strongly encourages Governor Hochul to sign the Grieving Families Act into law this year.
• Oppose Discrimination In Calculating Damage Awards: Amending the Law to Prohibit Consideration of a Person’s Sex, Race, Creed, Color, National Origin, Religion, Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression, Familial or Marital Status, or Status as a Victim of Domestic Violence in Calculating Damage Awards.

Support for Increased Protections and Access to Reproductive Health: As an organization whose mission is to promote the advancement of women in society, WBASNY adamantly supports a woman’s fundamental right to make her own reproductive health decisions and firmly supports all legislation at both the State and Federal levels that helps advance this goal.

Support for Increased Protections for LGBTQ+: WBASNY’s priorities include ensuring protection and promoting the well-being of LGBTQ+ individuals. This includes supporting legislation and regulations that will provide continued protection and access to marriage equality and access to informed healthcare, including gender affirming care. Furthermore, as part of this legislative priority, WBASNY will monitor actions to reduce and remove discrimination against LGBTQ+ New Yorkers through all aspects of the law.

Protection for Private Information for the Legal Profession and Judicial Security: WBASNY continues to support actions to ensure the increased safety and security of judges, court officials, the legal profession, and their families in the State of New York. Criminal threats of violence, intimidation, harassment, and inappropriate communications against judges, lawyers, and court officials have increased in recent years, which requires critical legislation to strengthen policies and protocols. Judges must be able to make decisions without fear of retaliation or retribution. The safety of the judiciary, court personnel, lawyers, and their families is vital not just to an independent judiciary but also to the rule of law and the protection of our democracy. There were important steps taken last year to increase security, and WBASNY supports continuing and further developing policies to protect our judges, court personnel, lawyers, and their families.

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The Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York (WBASNY) is the professional membership organization of choice for nearly 4,000 attorneys throughout New York State and the largest statewide women’s bar association in the country. For more than four decades, WBASNY has been a singularly important resource for women lawyers, providing professional networking, continuing legal education programming, leadership training, and advocacy for the rights of women, children, and families. Through involvement with WBASNY’s 20 regional chapters and its 40-plus substantive law committees, WBASNY’s members collaborate with one another on a variety of issues and perform public and community service, in furtherance of its mission to promote the advancement of the status of women in society and women in the legal profession; to promote the fair and equal administration of justice; and to act as a unified voice for its members with respect to issues of statewide, national and international significance to women generally and women attorneys in particular. WBASNY holds United Nations NGO status with the U.N.’s Department of Public Information, and Special Consultative status in association with the U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). WBASNY is also a founding member of the National Conference of Women’s Bar Associations.