As the founder and partner at Gershman Law, PLLC, Dyan Gershman handles complex corporate transactions that include mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, joint ventures, and technology and intellectual property licensing. Her clients over the past 25 years have included a number of Fortune 500 companies, and she previously served for eight years as executive counsel with General Electric. Dyan Gershman is admitted to practice in New York and Florida, and continues her long-time active support of professional and service organizations such as the New York Women’s Bar Association (NYWBA).
In 1893, Stanleyetta Titus, a graduate of New York University Law School, became the first woman admitted to the bar in New York State. But it would take another four decades for women to gain admission to the New York City Bar Association.
In 1934, a group of female attorneys formed the NYWBA in response to being shut out of the city’s central bar association. Their mission: “To define and elevate the status of women.”
The NYWBA made history with its 1935 certificate of incorporation filed on bluebacks - traditional coverings for legal documents - belonging to Hilda G. Schwartz, who later became a New York State Supreme Court Justice. In 1936, its member reception drew 50 new women attorneys to a local hotel, since women were still unwelcome at events held by the New York City Bar Association.
By 1937, the annual NYWBA reception hosted some 200 women in the profession - this time in the New York City Bar’s own building. And in 1938, the bar agreed to admit its first female members, with many of the founding members of the NYWBA among the first group admitted.
Since then, the NYWBA has continued its original mission. Members have taken on leading roles in the teaching and practice of law throughout the state, and the group’s foundation supports a variety of social justice causes empowering women and youth.
