Sybil Shainwald - Women's Health Lawyer

 

(excerpt from the NYCLA 2010 Edith I Spivak Award)

 

“Sybil Shainwald’s compassion and professional skills have ennobled the practice of law.” These words of United States District Court Judge Jack B. Weinstein, before whom Ms. Shainwald appeared hundreds of times in championing her clients’ rights, encapsulate the life and career of the woman we honor today.

 

The struggle for women’s rights is one of the great movements in our history.  This movement continues to have a profound impact on our society. The quality and scope of health care is an integral part of that struggle, and one that is of deep concern in this country and around the world.  Because of her passionate devotion to women’s rights in general, and women’s healthcare advocacy in particular, The Women’s Rights Committee of the New York Lawyer’s Association presents the 2010 Edith I. Spivak Award, the highest honor this Committee bestows, to Sybil Shainwald. This award honors those who have dedicated themselves to advancing the status of women and women’s rights.

 

Since the beginning of her legal career, Sybil Shainwald has focused almost exclusively on women’s health issues. Through her groundbreaking advocacy, she has advanced a deep commitment to social justice and women’s rights. The list of landmark cases with which she has been involved is impressive. She was instrumental in expanding the statute of limitations for latent injuries in New York, and filed the first case under the Revival and Discovery Statute, thus making compensation possible for thousands of women and their children, whose injuries had been ignored.

 

Sybil Shainwald was co-counsel in Bichler v. Lilly, the nation’s first DES daughter victory, after which thousands of cases were successfully litigated on behalf of women injured by DES. Ms. Shainwald also filed a class action which resulted in the establishment of an Emergency Fund for DES daughters.

 

Sybil Shainwald brought the initial cases for the lactation suppressant Parlodel and the pregnancy screening test Chorionic Villus Sampling, and has litigated thousands of other cases involving drugs and devices harmful to women and their children. She represented two thousand women in the Dalkon Shield litigation against A.H. Robins, and represents the women of the world in breast implant litigation. She was successful in setting up a $25 million fund for women outside the United States.

 

Ms. Shainwald has been a vocal opponent of the use of Norplant and DepoProvera: two long-acting contraceptives used especially in developing countries. She has been a force in the campaign for proactive education and information dissemination from Appalachia to Africa. She was chair of the National Women’s Health Network; a founding member of Trial Lawyers for Public Justice; a representative to the End-of-the-Decade Conference on Women; health advisor to the United Methodist Church; a member of the Food and Drug Administration’s Consumer Consortium; an integral part of the First Black Women’s Health conference, the first Rural Women’s Health Conference, and many other grass roots women’s groups, which she also helps fund.

 

Ms. Shainwald was the President Bryan Scholar at the College of William and Mary, where she was graduated Phi Beta Kappa. She received a Master’s Degree in History from Columbia University, a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to establish the Center for the Study of the Consumer Movement at Consumers Union, and a Rockefeller Foundation award for her work in consumer affairs. In 1962, while doing her graduate work in History under Professor Hofstadter at Columbia University, Ms. Shainwald applied to its Law School, but was denied admission because she “would take the place of a man who would practice law for 40 years.” Ten years later, the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment and Title IX banning sex discrimination made it possible for her to re-apply – this time to New York Law School’s evening division. Clearly, the application was accepted.

 

Sybil Shainwald’s professional writings, lectures, media appearances, and testimony before congressional committees and the FDA have raised the national consciousness on crucial women’s health issues. Her list of engagements as keynote speaker nationwide, and for many organizations crucial to the work of women’s health is impressive.

 

Among the honors Ms. Shainwald has received is the Susan B. Anthony Award from the National Organization for Women, the Doctor of Laws – Honorary degree from New York Law School in 2000, the President’s Medal of New York Law School in 2007, and the Deans Award – Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Columbia University, in 2009. She is listed in Who’s Who in America. 

 

Ms. Shainwald has said her reason for going to law school was “to make a perfect world, and in this I’ve been eminently unsuccessful.” If, as the Hebrew sages state, “to save a life is to save the world,” Ms. Shainwald has in fact been eminently successful, in that her pioneering advocacy on behalf of women’s health has saved many lives.

 

It is a privilege to present the 2010 Edith I. Spivak award to Ms. Sybil Shainwald.