Remarks by Richard P. Swanson Oct 28 2025 Weinfeld Luncheon Honoring Judge Debra Livingston

I’m Richard P. Swanson, the president of NYCLA, the New York County Lawyers Association.  Welcome to our annual Weinfeld Luncheon, sponsored by our Federal Courts Committee in honor of all the hard-working judges of the federal courts here in New York.  The luncheon is named in honor of Judge Edward Weinfeld on the Southern District of New York, who was truly a judge’s judge, widely recognized as one of the of the finest, if not THE finest judge ever to sit on the Mother Court. 

Judge Weinfeld has been gone almost 40 years now…he’d be 123 if he were still here today…so there are fewer and fewer of us who can actually claim to have appeared before him.  I’m fortunate to have been one of those few, and I certainly remember the first such time.  I was a very junior lawyer, being mentored by Ed Brodsky, one of the great trial lawyers of his day, from whom I learned how to try a case.  Ed was well known to the federal judiciary.  I was working with Ed on a case assigned to Judge Weinfeld, and we had a motion of some sort, and Ed said why don’t you argue it.  I was in heaven, dancing around the office, thinking “I’m going to argue a motion before the great Judge Edward Weinfeld,” who of course was a legend long before I started practicing law.  His discipline, work effort and infinitesimal reversal rate were all legendary and simply unsurpassed.

I don’t remember a single thing about the case, who our client was, what the case was about, or what the issues were, in the case generally or even what the issue was on the motion.  What I do remember was getting up, making my argument without interruption, and before my adversary could get up himself…and in those days it was most definitely “HIMself”…Judge Weinfeld looked down at me over his glasses from the bench, and said “You go back and tell Mr. Brodsky that the next time he wants to make a motion like that he should come down here and make it himself.”  Before I could get back to my office there was a fax…remember, this was the early 80s…of a 5-page decision, complete with case cites, cogently written no doubt with the assistance of one of his clerks, denying the motion.

My next experience in front of Judge Weinfeld was a criminal tax fraud trial, back in the days when we still prosecuted tax fraud.  The transactions were complicated and the trial long.  One day the chief judge came into the courtroom right before the trial day was scheduled to start, along with Judge Lasker.  The chief told us that Judge Weinfeld had fallen ill, and Judge Lasker would be taking over the trial, at least until Judge Weinfeld recovered.  Of course, he never did.  As the trial wound to a close a couple of weeks later, we found out that Judge Weinfeld had already prepared a draft jury charge, which he finished in his hospital bed and furnished to Judge Lasker.  It was impossible to find anything to object to in it.  Only a few weeks after that, Judge Weinfeld passed away from cancer.  We had no idea until Judge Lasker began to preside that Judge Weinfeld was even sick.  His attention to the case was focused and intense, and he was so disciplined that he gave not a single sign that anything was awry.

Our honoree today, Judge Debra Livingston, has that same focus, intensity and discipline.  As an appellate judge she of course does not have the same interactions with counsel, juries and witnesses as Judge Weinfeld had, but we do know from the quality of her writing and legal analysis, and her questions from the bench during oral argument, that she is an outstanding jurist and legal scholar, with outstanding leadership skills as well, as befits an excellent Chief Judge.  I’ll let others describe those qualities in more detail, especially Judge Raymond Lohier who will be introducing her.   

A word about Judge Lohier if I might.  He’s been on the Second Circuit since 2010.  He replaced Justice Sonia Sotomayor when she went to the Supreme Court.  No matter what their respective shoe sizes may be, those are big shoes to fill.  He was born in Montreal, in the 51st state, and is of Haitian descent, so he knows a thing or two about immigration and naturalization.  In fact, he is the first Haitian-American Article III judge.  He worked in the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, then became an AUSA in the SDNY, where he rose to be the head of the narcotics unit and then the head of the Securities and Commodities Fraud unit during the time of the Madoff investigation.  He is, as the expression goes, a gentleman and a scholar.

Enjoy your lunch and we’ll be back for the balance of the program when your stomachs are full and you can hear because they’re not rumbling.