A tribute to Hon. George Bundy Smith: a remarkable jurist and a remarkable man.

• Author: Lewers, Cornett
• Position: New York Court of Appeals' Senior Associate Judge - Testimonial

Good Evening Dean Treanor, Chief Judge Kaye, Judge Wesley, Judge Fisher, Congressman Rangel, President Alcott, Ms. Grannum, distinguished jurors, ladies and gentlemen, and Judge George Bundy Smith and Mrs. Smith.

Thank you Dean Treanor for allowing me, on behalf of the Metropolitan Black Bar Association ("MBBA") and the Metropolitan Black Bar Scholarship Fund ("MBBASF"), to participate in this evening's tribute to the Honorable Judge George Bundy Smith.

I and numerous others have had the privilege and honor to come to know Judge Smith as a result of our service on the Board of Directors of the MBBA and the MBBASF.

As many of you know, Judge Smith was a founding member of the MBBA, which was created in 1984 as a result of the merger of the Harlem Lawyers Association and the Bedford Stuyvesant Lawyers Association. Judge Smith served as President of the Harlem Lawyers Association and was the first Chair of the MBBA, serving from 1984-88.

Judge Smith has also served on the Board of the MBBASF since 1983. The MBBASF has for many years awarded scholarships to many talented law students each year.

What is even more remarkable is that despite his busy schedule, Judge Smith has been and continues to be an active Board member for both organizations. During my more than ten years as Chair of the MBBA, Judge Smith not only regularly attended and participated in the often lively debates during the monthly MBBA Board meetings, but frequently attended many of the events and functions sponsored by both organizations. I frequently reached out to him for his advice and counsel on numerous matters pertaining to the MBBA. It was Judge Smith who encouraged all of us to begin our building fund with the hopes one day of having a permanent home for the Association. It is Judge Smith who regularly challenged us to do more and to be the best that we could be.

The impact of his mere presence at our meetings and events cannot be underestimated. In preparation for these evening remarks, I contacted numerous present and former Board members. I received one e-mail which I would like to share because the experience and message are consistently echoed by many others and capture my sentiments quite succinctly. It reads:

The Metropolitan Black Bar Association was one of the first bar associations [that] I decided to become a member of upon my graduation from law school in the late 1980's. I was looking for a bar association that would not only provide an assortment of...