New York City-based attorney Dyan Gershman has assisted her clients, from startups to Fortune 500 companies, with mergers and acquisitions and other complex corporate transactions and commercial matters over the past three decades. In her early career, she worked with Jones Day as a senior corporate associate, moving on to executive in-house counsel positions with Bristol-Myers Squibb and General Electric. Dyan Gershman serves as principal at Gershman Law, PLLC. She is also a career-long supporter of the New York City Bar Association and its full range of professional and philanthropic programs.
The City Bar Justice Center (CBJC) helps New York residents in need by providing no-cost legal and brief services. The organization also recruits, mentors, and trains new generations of pro bono advocates with the help of volunteer individual attorneys, law firms, and corporate counsel.
Through its Elderlaw Project, CBJC closes the gaps many lower-income or ill senior adults face when trying to obtain legal help. Older adults from marginalized backgrounds are especially likely to have suffered inequities in housing, medical care, and economic opportunities over the course of their lives.
The project allows older New Yorkers to receive high-quality assistance with issues that include wills, powers of attorney, living wills, and healthcare proxy designations, and the services are absolutely free.
New York’s population is aging poorer than ever. The number of seniors living in poverty in Manhattan increased by 23 percent over the decade from 2011 to 2021, to reach more than 46,000. A number of these older adults are living with major challenges to their overall health and mobility. In addition many are isolated, having lost friends and family over the years.
The CBJC Elderlaw Project also goes out into the community to take information to people in senior centers all over New York’s five boroughs. On its website, the organization offers extensive information, in English and Spanish, on durable powers of attorney and other topics of special interest to senior adults.
