New York City Bar Association captures past president Sheila Boston on the canvas

Chief Judge Rowan Wilson addresses attendees to the unveiling of Sheila Boston’s portrait on Nov. 10 at the New York City Bar Association

Serving as president of the New York City Bar Association may come with its unique challenges. It’s the state’s second largest bar association group, its membership is diverse and it often makes its voice heard on controversial topics.

While the City Bar was formed in the 1870s in part because of growing public outrage over corruption in government and the courts, rarely are its presidents faced with the prospect of leading the roughly 20,000-member organization through a time of crisis. That responsibility recently fell on the shoulders of Sheila Boston, a Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer partner who in May 2020 became the first woman of color to serve as president of the 150-year-old City Bar.

Through her two-year term, Boston held the bar association group together through the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Members affectionately referred to her as the “Pandemic President” — and she took to calling the association the “Bar of Hope.”

Earlier this month, the City Bar feted Boston the same way that it has honored all of its past presidents: by commissioning a portrait of her to hang on the walls of the organization’s historic Midtown Manhattan headquarters.

from left: former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Jamila Marie Ponton