Our Story Educate

Education and Funding for Early Detection and Legal Services are Top Priorities

Breast cancer outreach and education remain key to our mission, coupled with funding for early detection initiatives and legal services for low-income women with breast cancer.

Family Center

The groups we help provide essential services

JALBCA is proud to fund educational programs, and family-focused initiatives to improve the quality of life for those affected, and early detection initiatives.

Scan Vans

Your donations get straight to work

The funds we raise through sponsorship, membership, and donations are deployed efficiently to take action against breast cancer.

OurStory_Symposium2018

Our meetings bring together leading thinkers.

We address key issues at the intersection of the law and cancer protection.


Judges And Lawyers Breast Cancer Alert (JALBCA) began in the early ‘90s to educate the legal community about breast cancer. Today, the judges and lawyers of JALBCA continue that mission by educating members of their profession and the public and harnessing their legal expertise, passion and resources to promote education, early detection initiatives and legal services to those affected by breast cancer. In supporting services like ScanVan and The Family Center, JALBCA facilitates breast cancer detection for those with little or no medical insurance and brings hope and legal assistance to women and families in marginalized communities. Fiercely committed to alleviating breast cancer, JALBCA funds legal initiatives to assist people in crisis following a diagnosis of breast cancer.

 

JALBCA mobilizes the New York legal community to take action against breast cancer.

Our mission is focusing on the intersection of the law and breast cancer, to leverage the legal community’s strength, passion, resources and expertise to promote awareness, early detection, treatment and support for all those affected by breast cancer; to provide programs that educate members of the profession about critical medical, legal and personal issues around breast cancer; to support the breast cancer community at large by supporting and funding major, well-integrated legal and legally-related counseling support programs, as well as state-of-the-art early detection initiatives.

Our Story

JALBCA was founded by a small group of judges and lawyers who were all personally affected by breast cancer, either as survivors themselves or as family or close friends. We realized that together we could make a difference in the legal community and resolved to take action. Our first target was to increase awareness about the importance of early detection and treatment. We also began to raise money to provide critically needed services to the legal community and beyond.

That was in 1992, when education about breast cancer was a primary need. JALBCA brought education to the places most accessible to judges and lawyers—courthouses. We began our Courthouse Alerts, distributing literature and information about resources, and these events now take place throughout the state.

To encourage early screening, we began sponsoring mobile mammography vans. Although the vans were originally intended to provide screening for busy legal professionals who felt that they didn’t have time to go to their health care professionals, the program began to provide screening to uninsured and underinsured women in their own communities.

JALBCA also presents symposiums on cutting-edge regulatory, industry, and legal issues relevant to the search for a cure and access to treatment for breast cancer. These meetings, often moderated by judges and renowned physicians, provide an essential source of high-level information, which is disseminated through our regular newsletter. Recent symposiums addressed conflicts of interest in breast cancer research and, in a courtroom setting, put “Mammograms on Trial.”

It’s been more than 25 years since JALBCA was founded, and our education, early detection, and support initiatives remain as relevant as ever. Breast cancer continues to affect women and men in our profession and in our lives. We are ever more committed to funding patient-focused organizations that provide legal and related services that make a difference in the lives of women experiencing breast cancer and their families. Each year, the Maite Aquino Memorial Grant, which honors one of our colleagues who died in 2011 after a determined fight against breast cancer, will provide funds to programs that offer legal and social support to families in crisis. We’re dedicated to serving not only members of the legal profession but also our shared community, as together we continue to take action against breast cancer and support those affected by it.

 

FOUNDERS OF JALBCA

Susan Bender, Esq.
Sheila L. Birnbaum, Esq.
Hon. Betty Weinberg Ellerin
Myrna Felder, Esq.
Hon. Helen E. Freedman
Martha Golar, Esq.
Ellen B. Holtzman
Hon. Judith S. Kaye
Hon. Sondra Miller
Hon. Karla Moskowitz
Hon. Jacqueline W. Silbermann
Hon. William C. Thompson


JALBCA mourns the passing and celebrates the life of Hon. William C. Thompson, a founding member, long-time Treasurer and Board member, on December 24, 2018. He was an extraordinary person and the heart of our organization. We encourage you to view the tribute video above, featuring Judge Thompson and several of his many colleagues, friends and admirers, which was shown at JALBCA’s Awards Presentation Dinner in May 2018, when we honored him for his more than 25 years of service to JALBCA. To donate to JALBCA in honor of Justice Thompson, please click here