The Honorable Jenny Rivera- Lawyer’s Pledge
Jenny Rivera, Associate Judge of the Court of Appeals, has spent her entire professional career in public service.
She clerked for the Honorable Sonia Sotomayor of the Southern District of New York and also clerked in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals Pro Se Law Clerk’s Office.
She worked for the Legal Aid Society’s Homeless Family Rights Project, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (renamed Latino Justice/PRLDEF), and was appointed by the New York State Attorney General as Special Deputy Attorney General for Civil Rights.
Judge Rivera has been an Administrative Law Judge for the New York State Division for Human Rights and served on the New York City Commission on Human Rights. Prior to her appointment, she was a tenured faculty member at the CUNY School of Law, where she founded and served as Director of the Law School’s Center on Latinx Rights and Equality.
Judge Rivera is an elected member of the American Law Institute. She has published extensively on interpersonal violence, women’s rights, and issues that impact the Latino community. She served on the American Bar Association’s Commission on Hispanic Legal Rights and Responsibilities from 2010 to 2012, and, as the Reporter to the Commission, authored the Commission’s Report. Judge Rivera has received several awards, including the ABA Spirit of Excellence Award and the NYSBA Diversity Trailblazer Lifetime Achievement Award.
She graduated from Princeton University and received her JD from New York University School of Law, where she was a Root-Tilden Scholar. She received her LLM from Columbia University School of Law.
The Lawyer’s Pledge
In accepting the honor and responsibility of life in the profession of law, I will strive, as best I can:
To work always with care, and with a whole heart and with good faith;
To weigh conflicting loyalties and guide my work with an eye to what is good, acting less for myself than for justice and the people;
To be at all times, even at personal sacrifice, a champion of due process, in court or not, for all persons, whether they be powerful or envied, or are my neighbors, or be among the helpless, hated, or oppressed; and,
To serve, protect, foster, and promote the fair and impartial administration of justice.