Celebration of Leadership Thursday, November 17, 5:30-8:30 PM Cornerstone at the Plaza, Albany, NY Empire Justice Center is holding our signature fundraising event, A Celebration of Leadership, on Thursday, November 17th at Cornerstone at the Plaza in Albany, NY. Our 2022 Leadership Awards will be presented to T. Andrew Brown, Laura Gonzalez-Murphy and, posthumously, to Empire Justice Center alum, Don Friedman. T. Andrew Brown has been a champion for access to justice his entire legal career. He is a founder and has been the Managing Partner of Rochester-based Brown Hutchinson LLP since 1994. He served as the Corporation Counsel for the City of Rochester as well as Deputy County Attorney for Monroe County, gaining invaluable civil litigation experience while serving as an advisor to the County Executive and other senior County officials. Andrew is a former General Counsel of the National Bar Association, the largest association of attorneys and judges of color in the world. He is a past President of the Monroe County Bar Association, the Rochester Black Bar Association and the New York State Bar Association. Laura Gonzalez-Murphy is a leader in the access to justice movement, with a particular focus on the rights of immigrants. She is Executive Director of the Office for New Americans (ONA) and was previously Immigration Policy and Research at the NY State Department of State, serving as lead policy advisor on the State’s response to federal immigration policies. In this capacity she has led the design and implementation of unique initiatives to ameliorate the human impact of the latest federal immigration policies and demographic flows, such as the Golden Door program which provides mental health assistance to immigrant families across New York and the Ramirez June Navigator, which focuses on empowering immigrant families with developmental disabilities, providing support as they seek to access services they are entitled to. Laura is also a former Board Member of Empire Justice Center. Don Friedman was the inaugural managing attorney and founder of Empire Justice Center’s Long Island office at the Public Advocacy Center on the Touro Law School campus from 2007 until his retirement in May 2020. Don was a well-known name among welfare advocates across the state. His depth of knowledge, combined with his spot-on sense of humor, always drew crowds to his training sessions, which often concluded with a concert during which Don played guitar and sang songs in celebration of justice. He was a gifted musician and shared his love of music by teaching harmony singing classes and performing with his group, Triboro. Don dedicated his life to empowering underserved communities and advocating on behalf of low-income people from the day he left Harvard Law School in 1977. We are thrilled and honored to publicly recognize the many accomplishments of our three awardees by honoring them at our Celebration of Leadership and we ask you to join us in celebrating their contributions to the pursuit of access to justice on Thursday, November 17. | 
