56th Annual Rapallo/Scalia Award Luncheon
Celebrate with us on April 14, 2023
Anthony Cannataro, Acting Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals, was born in New Jersey in July 1965. On May 25, 2021, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo nominated him to the Court of Appeals, and the New York State Senate confirmed his appointment on June 8, 2021.
A career public servant, Judge Cannataro began his legal career in 1996 as an Assistant Corporation Counsel with the New York City Law Department. From 2000-2003, he served as Law Clerk to Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick, Associate Judge of the New York Court of Appeals. He then served as Law Clerk to Hon. Lottie E. Wilkins in Supreme Court, New York County from 2003-2011. In 2011, he was elected Judge of the Civil Court of the City of New York, receiving assignments to the Kings County Family Court and the Bronx County Civil Court, until his appointment in 2016 as Supervising Judge of the New York County Civil Court. In 2017, he was elected Justice of the Supreme Court for the First Judicial District. Upon taking office as a Supreme Court Justice in January 2018, he was concurrently appointed Citywide Administrative Judge for the New York City Civil Court.
Judge Cannataro received his B.A. (cum laude) from Columbia University in 1993 and his J.D. (cum laude) from New York Law School in 1996. He was admitted to practice law in April 1997. He currently resides with his husband in Westchester County.
PAST EVENT
55th Annual Rapallo/Scalia Award Luncheon
Justice Saliann Scarpulla Bio
Justice Saliann Scarpulla is a graduate of Boston University and Brooklyn Law School, cum laude. After law school, Justice Scarpulla clerked for the Hon. Alvin F. Klein in Supreme Court, New York County. When her clerkship concluded, Justice Scarpulla joined Proskauer Rose Goetz & Mendelsohn as a litigation associate.
Justice Scarpulla later moved to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation as Senior Counsel in the New York Legal Services Office. From the FDIC Justice Scarpulla became Senior Vice President and Bank Counsel to Hudson United Bank.
Justice Scarpulla returned to the New York State court system in 1999, as Principal Court Attorney to the Hon. Eileen Bransten. She was then elected to the New York City Civil Court in 2001, appointed to the New York State Supreme Court in 2009, and elected to the Supreme Court in 2012. Since February 2014, Justice Scarpulla has been sitting in the Supreme Court, New York County Commercial Division. In 2019 Justice Scarpulla was also appointed to handle all international commercial arbitration matters pending in the New York State Supreme Court.
Justice Scarpulla is a contributing author to the Commercial Litigation in New York State Courts treatise and has authored several articles on technology and commercial litigation. Justice Scarpulla is a frequent lecturer for, among others, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, the New York County Lawyers Association, the New York State Bar Association, the American Bar Association, the Practicing Law Institute, and the New York State Judicial Institute. In 2017 Justice Scarpulla was honored as one of Three Wise Women by the National Association of Italian American Women and was awarded the Louis J. Capozzoli Gavel Award by the New York County Lawyers Association.
Justice Scarpulla is active in several New York City and statewide bar associations and is a Business Court Representative to the American Bar Association. She is a member of New York’s Commercial Division Advisory Council, and the Co-Chair of the Council’s Subcommittee on Use of Technology in Commercial Division Cases. Justice Scarpulla also sits on the Chief Judge’s Alternative Dispute Resolution Advisory Committee, and, in October 2019 Chief Judge DiFiore appointed Justice Scarpulla to the New York State Continuing Legal Education Board. Justice Scarpulla is a Board member and Co-President of Judges and Lawyers Breast Cancer Alert (JALBCA), and a trustee of the Camp Mason YMCA.
Past Event
2019 Rapallo/Scalia Luncheon
Friday, April 5th, 2019
12:30 PM
Join us at this year’s Rapallo/Scalia Luncheon as we proudly present the Rapallo/Scalia Award to Justice Nicholas Iacovetta.
Nicholas J. Iacovetta is a Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York serving in the County of the Bronx. His judicial career spans 30 years. He was appointed a Judge of the Criminal Court of the City of New York by Mayor Edward I. Koch in 1988. He was reappointed to that position for 3 successive 10 year terms by Mayor Rudolph Guiliani in 1996, by Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2006 and by Mayor Bill De Blasio in 2016. In 1994, Robert G. M. Keating, the Administrative Judge of the Criminal Court, designated him to serve in the Supreme Court as an Acting Supreme Court Justice where he has presided over more than 200 felony jury trials. Justice Iacovetta has also served in various specialized parts including Drug Court, the Juvenile Offender Court, Veterans Court, Judicial Diversion & Treatment Court, and Mental Health Treatment Court. In 2018 he was appointed a Justice of the Supreme Court after his nomination by Governor Andrew Cuomo was confirmed by the New York State Senate.
Justice Iacovetta is a resident of the Bronx where he is a parishioner at St. Benedicts Church. He is a graduate of Cardinal Hayes High School, received his B.A. from Fordham College, and his J.D. from Fordham University School of Law.
Justice Iacovetta was commissioned a 2d Lt. in the Army R.O.T.C. accelerated program after training at Fort Benning, Georgia during the summer preceding his senior year of college. After graduating law school in May 1973 he graduated from the U.S. Army Field Artillery School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma in December 1973. He received an Honorable Discharge from the Army Reserve in 1978 with the rank of Captain.
In February 1974 he began his 14 year career as an Assistant District Attorney in the Office of Mario Merola, the District Attorney of Bronx County, where he prosecuted serious felonies including many homicide cases before receiving promotions to the positions of Bureau Chief of the Criminal Court, Bureau Chief of the Homicide Bureau, and finally First Assistant District Attorney before his initial judicial appointment in 1988.
Justice Iacovetta has two daughters, Christine, a doctor of veterinary medicine, Nicole, a pastry chef and personal trainer, and their mother, Lorraine, is a secretary. He is an avid Yankee fan who also enjoys hiking and kayaking. His most memorable trip was a week long adventure with his two daughters camping on the banks of and rafting down the Colorado River to the bottom of the Grand Canyon before ascending the 9 1⁄2 mile Bright Angel Trail to the summit of the Grand Canyon.
Justice Iacovetta has participated in several civic and charitable organizations. His memberships have included serving as an active board member of the Columbian Lawyers Association, First Judicial Department, as a trustee in the Sons of Italy, Uguaglianza, Lodge No. 83, as a member of the American Justinian Society of Jurists, and the Country Club Civic Association. He is also a member of the Bronx County Bar Association and the New York City Bar Association where he has served on several committees and participated as a panel member in CLE programs. He served as an adjunct professor of law at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, as an instructor at the Intensive Trial Advocacy Course at Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School, and participated in the Thurgood Marshall Junior Mock Trial Program. He is the author of several reported judicial decisions in the New York Official Reports and the New York Law Journal. His rewards from professional and community organizations include election in 2013 as a Fellow of the Advanced Science and Technology Adjudication Resource Center (ASTAR), and selection as an Italian American Role Model by the Columbus Alliance in 1998.
Justice Iacovetta will be presented with the 2019 Rapallo/Scalia Award at the 54th Annual Rapallo/Scalia Luncheon.
