Richard P. Swanson — 58th Charles Evans Hughes Lecture Remarks—Introduction of Hon. Rowan D. Wilson on October 22, 2025

Remarks Presented by Richard P. Swanson
President, New York County Lawyers Association on the Occasion of the 58th Charles Evans Hughes Memorial Lecture
Hughes Hubbard & Reed
Presented October 22, 2025

Thank you, Jim, for your fascinating remarks. I’m Richard P. Swanson, the president of NYCLA, and I want to welcome you all here at Hughes Hubbard, for the Charles Evans Hughes lecture, being given tonight by the Hon. Rowan Wilson, Chief Judge of the State of New York. Chief Judge Wilson presides over the New York Court of Appeals, as you all know, which is one of the nation’s, and the world’s, leading common law courts. He also presides over the entire state court system, which is sprawling, and has roughly three times the number of judges that sit in the entire federal court system nationwide. He has put together an outstanding team of administrative judges, including Chief Administrative Judge Joseph Zayas; Deputy Chief Administrative Judge Norman St. George; and Deputy Chief Administrative Judge Edwina Richardson.

The culture is one of listening, rather than directing, and explaining rather than ordering, and cooperating and collaborating.

NYCLA has been sponsoring the Hughes Lecture since 1950. It was of course named for Charles Evans Hughes, one of our most prominent past presidents. He’ll be remembered long after I’m gone. He was a governor of the State of New York; ran for President as a Republican against Woodrow Wilson in 2016, when the Republican Party was still the party of Lincoln; and became the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, helping to engineer the so-called “switch in time that saved nine,” upholding New Deal legislation in FDR’s second term during a prior period of intense controversy over Supreme Court decisions.

 
It’s not an accident that we host this lecture with Hughes Hubbard, one of New York’s oldest and most prominent law firms. Thank you, Jim. At one time the firm was named Carter, Hughes & Cravath, and that genealogy led not only to Hughes Hubbard, but also Carter Ledyard as well as Cravath Swaine & Moore, where Chief Judge Wilson was a partner.

Prior Hughes lectures have been given by many prominent lawyers over the past 75 years. I won’t list them all, but they include:
• Trevor Morrison
• Matthew Diller
• Henry M. Greenberg
• Hon. Robert Katzman
• Hon. Jonathan Lipman
• Hon. Judith S. Kaye
• Preet Bharara
• Hon. Jose Cabranes
• Robert MacCrate
• Hon. Jack B. Weinstein
• Dean John D. Feerick
• Dean John E. Sexton
• Hon. Frederick A.O. Schwarz, Jr.
• Hon. Lawrence H. Cook
• Dean Robert B. McKay
• Hon. Shirley M. Hufstedler
• Whitney North Seymour
• Hon. Henry J. Friendly
• Prof. Paul A. Freund
• Dean Roscoe Pound

So, Chief Judge Wilson, you are in good company.

 
It’s been said that, for lawyers anyway, except for your spouse no one knows you better than your partners. You spend considerable time with one another, and know each other’s personalities, strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes, goals, ambitions and desires, and yes, their foibles. Chief Judge Wilson’s law partner Evan Chesler from Cravath is here to introduce the Chief. Mr. Chesler has been with Cravath since 1976, was elected a partner in 1982, became the head of litigation in 1996, Deputy Presiding Partner in 2005 and Presiding Partner in 2007. He was the first person ever to be given the title of Chair of the firm in 2013. He’s chaired the board at NYU and the New York Public Library; argued before the Supreme Court; been elected to the American College of Trial Lawyers; and received a lifetime achievement award from the New York Law Journal. I could say so much more about his career, and the cases he has handled, but I think what I have said by itself tells you more than enough. Mr. Chesler.