Judge Colleen McMahon Honored
By Neva Rae Fox
The Honorable Colleen McMahon, United States Judge for the Southern District of New York, was honored as the Servant of Justice at the sixth annual Law Day Observance on Monday, May 12. McMahon is an active member of Christ Church, Bronxville.
The Servant of Justice award is sponsored by the Episcopal Diocese of New York and its Guild of St. Ives, an association of lawyers and judges. St. Ives is the patron saint of lawyers, judges and the legal profession.
“Lawyers and judges are called to be sculptors,” McMahon said at the Evensong, held at St. Paul’s Chapel, Manhattan. “It is our ministry to smooth out the rough edges of our own law, to carve away some of the bits and pieces of it that are inconsistent with the enduring principles that undergird it — principles grounded in the Law of Sinai and in our collective vision of what it means for a government to derive just powers from the governed.”
She continued, “For two centuries, lawyers have done this work, chipping away at laws that permitted slavery, and suppressed women, and exploited children, and limited the franchise, and winked at discrimination, and imprisoned men without benefit of counsel. Sometimes lawyers have done more than chip, they have made a bold stroke, when they saw the law working an injustice. And there has emerged from our sculpting a mighty work of justice that is as beautiful as any statue. We have not subverted the law by our sculpting; we are, in the immortal words of Jesus, fulfilling it. On this Law Day, we can and should congratulate ourselves for doing that great work and we should recommit ourselves to engaging in it.”
Currently serving at the United States Courthouse in White Plains, McMahon previously served as Acting Justice of the New York County Supreme Court (Criminal Term). Prior to that, she spent almost 20 years at the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York City.
The Hon. Colleen McMahon, honored as the Servant of Justice, spoke at the Evensong for the Law Day Observance.
The Hon. Colleen McMahon is greeted by Bishop Catherine Roskam, left, and Bishop Mark Sisk.
Photos by MARY BETH DISS
McMahon has served as the chair of The Jury Project, the task force that issued the much praised report on comprehensive jury reform in New York State, and chair of the Committee on Women in the Profession and Committee on State Courts of Superior Jurisdiction of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, as well as on numerous other professional committees.
McMahon was briefly director of the Committee for Modern Courts and remains involved in the jury reform movement through the Board of Citizens Jury Project of the Fund for Modern Courts. She graduated from Ohio State University and Harvard Law School.
For the Diocese, McMahon has served as vice chancellor and a member of the Canons Committee. She sat on two important task forces: Clergy and Sexual Misconduct and the Congregational Support Plan. She also sat on two committees to elect a bishop. She is currently a member of the Standing Committee and the Guild of St. Ives.
McMahon serves as a warden for Christ Church, Bronxville. Her many church activities include membership in the choir, delegate to diocesan convention, and Sunday School teacher. She has been active as a lay preacher throughout the Diocese.
She is the author of Meditations for Vestry Members (1999, Morehouse Publishing) and The View From Gabbatha: Meditations from the Judge’s Bench (2003, Church Publishing).
She and her husband have three children.