NYSBA Leadership

Domenick Napoletano is a solo practitioner focusing on complex commercial litigation and appellate work while maintaining a general practice. A number of his cases have appeared in published decisions, most involving real property and tenancy and occupancy issues. He has spearheaded various state and federal class action lawsuits, including against the New York City Department of Finance for its imposition of “vault taxes.”

Among his New York State Bar Association activities, Napoletano is a past chair of the General Practice Section and co-chair of the Committee on Civil Practice Law and Rules. He previously co-chaired the Emergency Task Force for Solo and Small Firm Practitioner. He has served on many association committees including Finance, Leadership Development, Bar Leaders of New York State, Animals in the Law, the President’s Committee on Access to Justice, Task Force on the Evaluation of Candidates for Election to Judicial Office and the Task Force on Mass Shootings and Assault Weapons.

Napoletano also served on the association’s Executive Committee as vice president from the 2nd Judicial District and the House of Delegates representing the Brooklyn Bar Association. He is a past president of the Brooklyn Bar Association, the Columbian Lawyers Association of Brooklyn, the Confederation of Columbian Lawyers of the State of New York and the Catholic Lawyers Guild of Kings County.

While in college and throughout law school, Napoletano worked for then-New York State Assemblyman Michael L. Pesce, who recently retired as presiding justice of the state Supreme Court Appellate Term for the 2nd, 11th and 13th Judicial Districts.

Napoletano earned his law degree from Hofstra University School of Law and his undergraduate degree from Brooklyn College.

Taa Grays is vice president and associate general counsel of information governance at MetLife Legal Affairs. As the lead of information governance, Grays is responsible for the strategic management of MetLife’s global Information Lifecycle Management Program. She leads an eight-person team that develops, implements and manages the information governance strategic plan.

Grays was co-chair of the New York State Bar Association’s Task Force on Racism, Social Equity and the Law. She is a member of the Business Law, Corporate Counsel and Women in Law sections. She served as vice president of the First Judicial District on the Executive Committee and chaired the New York State Conference of Bar Leaders and the Committee on Women in the Law (now the Women in Law Section). In addition, she co-chaired the Task Force on Racial Injustice and Police Reform.

Grays was honored with the State Bar Association’s Diversity Trailblazer Award in 2008.

She started with MetLife in 2003 in the litigation section and served as the chief of staff to the general counsel since 2010. Prior to MetLife, Grays was an assistant district attorney with the Bronx District Attorney’s Office in its rackets bureau for five-and-a-half years.

Grays was recognized as one of 100 Leading Women Lawyers in New York by Crain’s New York Business in 2017, a Visionary Leader in Litigation by Inside Counsel in 2016, one of the Most Influential Black Lawyers in 2015 and named Ready to Rise to become a general counsel in 2013 and 2015.

Within the legal community, the New York City Bar Association recognized Grays as a Diversity Champion in 2015. The Metropolitan Black Bar Association acknowledged her dedication and leadership to the bar in 2010 by honoring her with its inaugural Bar Leaders of the Year Award.

Grays earned her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center and received her undergraduate degree from Harvard College.

Susan L. Harper, Managing Director NY/NJ at Bates Group, began her term as treasurer of the New York State Bar Association on June 1, 2023.

Harper is the founding chair of the association’s Women in Law Section and served as chair of the Committee on Women in the Law, where she successfully spearheaded initiatives and legislation to advance issues pertaining to women in the legal profession and advocate for the fair and equitable treatment of all women under the law.

Harper also served on the New York State Bar Association’s Finance Committee and as a House of Delegates member. She has presented to the HOD on six occasions to advance issues regarding paid leave, the Equal Rights Amendment, and the creation of the WIL Section.

Harper is the chair of the association’s Attorney-Client Relations Working Group on the Task Force on the Post-Pandemic Future of the Profession.

Harper has been admitted to the New York and New Jersey Bars. She has represented major broker dealers, insurance companies and clearing firms and their employees on matters before the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the Securities and Exchange Commission and state and federal courts in connection with customer, industry, and employment disputes.

Harper is co-chair of the New York County Lawyers Association Securities and Exchange Committee, past Women’s Rights Committee chair and is an immediate past member of the NYCLA Board of Directors and its Investment Committee.

Harper served as president and chair of the board and executive committee of the Financial Women’s Association of New York and the FWA of the New York Educational Fund. She also served as the FWA board restructuring chair and general counsel. She is the organization’s liaison to the United States military.

She earned her law degree from New York Law School and her bachelor’s in business management from Simmons College in Boston.

Sherry Levin Wallach is the Deputy Executive Director of the Legal Aid Society of Westchester County.

Levin Wallach concentrates her practice on criminal defense. She has also practiced in the areas of estate planning, probate and estate administration, real estate and general civil litigation. She has practiced in both the state and federal courts. In her years in private practice, she served on both the Westchester and Putnam County Assigned Counsel panels, which provide criminal defense for those who cannot afford an attorney.

In 2022, Levin Wallach was appointed to the Advisory Board for the New York University’s Metaverse Collaborative.

She began her career as an assistant district attorney of Bronx County. Levin Wallach then took an position as an associate at the law firm of McAloon & Friedman, PC, where she handled medical malpractice defense.  She went on to be a principal at her law firm Wallach & Rendo, LLP for the next 14 years until becoming of counsel to both Bashian Law (formerly Bashian & Farber), and Brown Hutchinson.

Levin Wallach is co-founder of the NYSBA Young Lawyers Section Trial Academy, an annual program offering five days of intensive trial training. She continued to serve as the program’s faculty organizer, team leader and lecturer. At the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic, she assisted the NYSBA CLE Department on expanding the Trial Academy to have a series of virtual lectures on trial practice that run live from June to December and then chaired its 2021 inaugural Virtual Trial Academy. In 2022, Levin Wallach has assisted the NYSBA staff and program chairs in returning the program to it’s live format and bringing it to Syracuse University’s School of Law.

A former chair of the Criminal Justice and Young Lawyers Sections, Levin Wallach served as NYSBA secretary for four terms, was a vice president from the Ninth Judicial District to the Executive Committee, and four years as a Member-at-Large on the Executive Committee. She chaired and co-chaired the Membership Committee for seven years and co-chaired the Task Force on Incarceration Release Planning and Programs where she chairs the Supervision subcommittee of the Task Force on Parole Reform. Levin Wallach serves on the Committee on Professional Discipline, the Committee on Mandated Representation, the Committee on Immigration Representation, and is a former chair of the Resolutions Committee. She is also a member of the NYSBA Women in the Law Section, Criminal Justice Section, Trial Lawyers Section, LGBTQ Law Section and the Torts, Insurance, and Compensation Law Section.

Levin Wallach coached the Pace Law School Mock Trial Team for two years before beginning her term as NYSBA’s President. She has taught at the National Institute of Trial Advocacy at Hofstra University School of Law and coached and judged high school, college and law school mock trial competitions.

She organizes and lectures at continuing legal education programs for NYSBA, the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, The New York State Defenders Association and the Westchester County Bar Association on the topics including trial advocacy, criminal and civil trial practice, ethics, women in the law, forensic science and DWI. She authored a chapter on DWI defense, “Best Practices for Defense Attorneys in Today’s DWI Cases,” in Inside the Minds: Strategies for Defending DWI Cases in New York, as well as articles on criminal justice issues and trial practice which have been published in the New York Law Journal and the publications of the New York State Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section.

Levin Wallach earned her Juris Doctorate from Hofstra University School of Law (now the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University) and her undergraduate BBA from George Washington University.