New York State Bar Association Honors Elisabeth Haub School of Law Emeritus Professor Merril Sobie With Lifetime Achievement Award

September 10, 2020
Professor Merril Sobie

The New York State Bar Association has honored Haub Law Emeritus Professor Merril Sobie with a special lifetime achievement award for decades of contribution to family law and children’s law.

Chief Judge Janet DiFiore delivered opening remarks and presented the lifetime achievement award, as well as the 2020 Howard A. Levine Awards for Excellence in Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare, in a virtual ceremony on Sept. 9. Prof. Sobie is also 2000 recipient of the Howard A. Levine Award. New York State Bar Association President Scott M. Karson delivered introductory remarks.

Merril Sobie served as the first executive officer of the New York City Family Court, and as assistant to the director of administration of the Courts, First Judicial Department. He is a founding faculty member and has taught at Haub Law since 1978. He has specialized in family and children’s law. He teaches Jurisprudence, Children and the Law, Advanced Family Law, and Comparative Family Law.

Prof. Sobie has authored two important books, New York Family Court Practice and The Creation of Juvenile Justice: A History of Children’s Law. He also published the official McKinney’s Commentaries to the Family Court Act and the Domestic Relations Law, and has authored numerous articles on children’s laws.

“Prof. Sobie was one of the original faculty members at the law school, joining soon after it opened in 1976. Over the decades he has been an extraordinarily valuable faculty member, a mentor to students and fellow scholars alike,” said Haub Law Dean Horace Anderson. “We are thrilled that the State Bar is giving him the attention we know he richly deserves.”

In addition, Prof. Sobie co-authored the New York State Bar Association Study of the Legal Representation of Children, drafted the official Bar Association Standards and Commentaries for Representing Children, and drafted the New York Juvenile Delinquency Code.

For many years he was chairman of the New York State Bar Association Committee on Children and the Law, and he is a fellow of the New York Bar Foundation.

He earned a bachelor’s degree at Brooklyn College and a J.D. at New York University School of Law.

You can also read Professor Sobie’s remarks from the evening here.

You can hear Chief Judge Janet DiFiore's remarks for the night here.

About Elisabeth Haub School of Law

Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University offers J.D. and Masters of Law degrees in both Environmental and International Law, as well as a Doctor of Juridical Science (SJD) in Environmental Law. The school, housed on the University’s campus in White Plains, N.Y., opened its doors in 1976 and has over 8,500 alumni around the world. The school maintains a unique philosophy and approach to legal education that strikes an important balance between practice and theory.

Haub Law launched its Environmental Law Program in 1978, and it has long been ranked among the world’s leading university programs. Pace’s doctoral graduates teach environmental law at universities around the world. Pace’s J.D. alumni are prominent in environmental law firms, agencies and non-profit organizations across the U.S. and abroad. In 2016, the Law School received a transformational gift from the family of Elisabeth Haub, in recognition of its outstanding environmental law programs.

You May Also Like