Patricia E. Salkin, past chair of the ABA Section of State and Local Government Law and a current Section delegate, was honored as recipient of the New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) 2016 Ruth G. Schapiro Memorial Award, given by the NYSBA Committee on Women in the Law to honor a noteworthy contribution to the concerns of women. The NYSBA, founded in 1876, is the largest voluntary state bar association in the nation, with 74,000 members.
April 30, 2016
NYSBA Honors Touro Law Dean with Ruth G. Schapiro Memorial Award
The award was presented on January 29, 2016, during the NYSBA Annual Meeting in New York City, by NYSBA President David P. Miranda, who stated, “The Ruth G. Schapiro Award is a remarkable honor given in honor of a remarkable woman. Patty Salkin has been a long and devoted member of the Bar Association. She has been and is a leader working to advance the status of women in the legal profession through her scholarship, service, and her work in the community. . . . Time and again she has been the go-to person for getting things done in the Bar, in academia, and in her community. It is my honor and privilege to present this award to Patty Salkin.”
“Dean Salkin is a woman who embodies the spirit of the Ruth G. Schapiro Award,” said Ellen G. Makofsky (Makofsky & Associates), co-chair of the Committee on Women in the Law. The award is named for the late Ruth G. Schapiro, a nationally regarded tax lawyer, who was the first woman partner at Proskauer. Active in NYSBA, she was the first chair of the Committee on Women in the Law, chair of the Tax Section and the Finance Committee, and one of the first women to serve on the Executive Committee. She died in 1991. The Ruth G. Schapiro award was created in her honor in 1992.
Salkin, who is Dean of Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center and the recently appointed Provost of the Touro College Graduate and Professional Divisions, has consistently worked to advance the status of women in the legal profession. She contributed to the ABA’s “Women Trailblazers in the Law,” served as a liaison to the ABA Commission on Women in the Law, and helped establish the country’s first “Justice Patch Program” with the Girl Scouts of Suffolk County, Long Island, New York.
Past Chair of the NYSBA Municipal Law (now the Local and State Government) Section, and founding member and past chair of the Committee on Attorneys in Public Service, Salkin has chaired numerous State Bar task forces, including government ethics, eminent domain, and town and village justice courts.
Salkin is a nationally recognized authority on land use and zoning law. She is a graduate of the University at Albany and Albany Law School, where she served for more than two decades, as Associate Dean, Director of the Government Law Center, and as the Raymond & Ella Smith Distinguished Professor of Law.
Dean Salkin’s remarks on receiving the Schapiro Award are reprinted beginning on page 6.