Justice Andrea Masley was elected as a Justice to the New York State Supreme Court in 2016 and assigned to the Commercial Division in 2017. She was elected to a ten-year term in the New York City Civil Court in 2007 and assigned to Family Court from 2008 to 2010.

For ten years prior to her election to the New York City Civil Court, Judge Masley was the Principal Court Attorney for Justice Charles Edward Ramos, in the Commercial Division of the New York State Supreme Court, New York County, and for Judge Louise Gans, Acting New York State Supreme Court Judge, New York County.

Judge Masley received her J.D. from Fordham University School of Law in 1991 where, in the Spring of 2005, she taught Remedies. Upon graduation, Judge Masley was a litigation associate at the firm of Dechert Price & Rhoads until 1995. Before joining the staff of the New York State Supreme Court in 1998, Judge Masley was Diversity Counsel at the City Bar Association.

Judge Masley is a member of the New York State Bar’s Commercial and Federal Litigation Section, and since 1991, a member of the City Bar Association, where she currently serves on the Executive Committee. During her 2005-2008 tenure as Chair of the City Bar’s Committee on State Courts of Superior Jurisdiction, which addresses issues arising in New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Terms, Appellate Divisions, Court of Claims, and Court of Appeals, the Committee drafted the form confidentiality agreement for the Commercial Division. She sat on the City Bar’s Electronic Discovery Committees from 2005 to 2007, which drafted reports entitled “Manual for State Trial Courts Regarding Electronic Discovery” and “Cost-Allocation Explosion of Electronic Discovery in All Areas of Litigation Necessitates Changes in CPLR.” The New York State Bar’s Commercial and Federal Litigation Section awarded Judge Masley the Chair’s Service Award as Chair of its PJI Committee and for her contribution to commercial practice in 2013 and 2015.

She is the author of a chapter on contract litigation in the five-volume series Practical Solutions for New York Lawyers, published by Lexis/Nexis in 2003.

Prior to her legal career, Judge Masley obtained an M.B.A. in finance and a B.A. in Economics from Rutgers University. She was the Trade Practice Specialist at the Better Business Bureau and an accountant at Bunge Corporation, a grain trading firm.

Joanna Wade is Associate General Counsel and Managing Director at Bank of America, where she leads the Global Banking and Global Markets litigation team, having previously served as the Bank’s Global Head of Outside Counsel Management.  Before joining Bank of America, Joanna was a litigation partner at Winston & Strawn, where she practiced for 13 years and handled a wide variety of complex commercial litigation matters for Bank of America and other clients. 

25 year Chief Legal Officer/General Counsel (including 16 year public companies) and trusted advisor to the C-Suite and Board, who strategically partners with the business while focusing on SaaS, generative AI and other product and technology transformations at fast-growing technology companies like Trajector, DHI Group, Inc. (NYSE: DHX) and CMP Media (Nasdaq: CMPX).

25 year CLO/GC experience at public and private companies has been earned while serving with 7 different CEOs and a host of changing senior leaders and board members, resulting in seemingly ever-changing company priorities, all while helping lead ongoing diversity driven board refreshment initiatives involving 35+ directors over time. I have led technology companies through significant corporate life-cycle events, including founder-led, family ownership transitions, private equity investments, hedge fund ownership, activist investor challenges, transformative acquisitions, strategic transformations, reorganizations, two IPOs and over 16 years of public company life for DHI Group, Inc. (NYSE: DHX) and CMP Media (Nasdaq: CMPX). As such, I pride myself on navigating through choppy waters and serving as a steady hand on the wheel while focusing on leading the company forward.

As a recognized leader of the inhouse counsel community, I serve as a Board member of the Global Board of Directors of the Association of Corporate Counsel and Chair of the Board’s Technology Committee, and am also a Charter Member of TechGC / The L Suite, where I co-chair the Public Company group.

My success in the C-Suite and Boardroom is attributable to three core competencies: (i) my ability to build relationships with executives and directors through meaningful interactions; (ii) my ability to synthesize and distill complex legal issues and convey them in plain-English; and (iii) my expertise in building consensus on key issues from a strategic legal and business perspective.

My Board describes me as a consummate professional with a high EQ, unflappable under pressure, easy to work with, a straight shooter, and solution oriented. Senior leadership sees me as a trusted advisor, strategic partner, direct communicator, and a partner with a strong work ethic and high business acumen. Rather than being the “department of no” or “place where deals go to die” (as legal departments are often described), I focus our team on operating as “department of yes" or "yes, but" driving creative solutions, with an explanation as to how we achieve good outcomes legally and ethically (rather than simply saying we cannot do it).

https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianpatrickcampbell/

Tracee has been winning complex, high-value litigation for decades. As lead trial and class action defense counsel in litigating and arbitrating commercial and business disputes, Tracee is frequently retained for her jury and non-jury trial experience in state and federal court. She litigates and advises clients across all industries, including digital services, data licensing, industrial products, financial and insurance services, retail and commercial, and residential real estate. Her experience involves a range of complex matters, including breach of contracts, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, misrepresentation, tortious interference, and violations of data privacy, cybersecurity, discrimination, and financial services laws and regulations.

Tracee counsels C-suites and board directors on corporate governance matters, including fiduciary duties, litigation risk avoidance and strategic development, alignment, and design implementation of privacy, cybersecurity, and ESG policies and practices. 

In addition, Tracee serves as a private commercial arbitrator/mediator, through SSAM Alternative Dispute Resolution LLC, combining her extensive legal knowledge with her goal of providing business clients with practical, cost-efficient legal solutions. Courts routinely appoint Tracee to serve as a Court-Appointed Receiver, Referee, and Special Master to facilitate the liquidation of assets and enforcement of court orders in the disposition of complex business disputes.

Tracee has built a reputation for delivering results both in and out of court using precise business-oriented legal analysis and in finding creative and practical solutions swiftly, efficiently, and always with a mindful eye on costs. Tracee’s ability to provide clients with consistent results stems from two unique experiences: first, she spent many years as an attorney in one of the busiest complex commercial courts in the country, Manhattan’s Commercial Division, handling as almost a special master or the equivalent of a magistrate judge, the most challenging, complex, and oftentimes cyclical disputes financial and other markets regularly face. Second, she stays engaged in the development of commercial law and courtroom procedures through her leadership roles in the bar association.

Tracee is a founding member of New York State’s Commercial Division Advisory Council, a group that proposes rules to promote cost-efficient litigation in New York’s commercial courts. She is a member of New York Institute of Technology’s Women’s Technology Council. She served as the chair of the 2,000-member Commercial and Federal Litigation Section of the New York State Bar Association, a group which laid much of the ground work in establishing New York’s Commercial Division, one of the first commercial courts in the country. She served as a commissioner on the New York State Ethics Commission for the Unified Court System, and she served as chair the 150-year old Judiciary Committee of the New York City Bar Association, which reviews the qualifications of all elected or appointed federal, state, and local judges sitting in the City of New York. She is also a member of the national Association of Defense Trial Attorneys (ADTA).

Tracee is a frequent speaker on commercial litigation, emerging technology-related issues, including AI and GenAI, and equity and inclusion in the law. Tracee is the New York Office Co-Chair of Seyfarth’s national Diversity in Action Team and Co-Chair of Seyfarth’s ESG-Impact Group’s Sub-Committee on Corporate Governance. She is creator and host of The Financial Law Forum podcast, which focuses on the intersection between the financial industry, law, and equal access to opportunities. She co-authored the influential report, If Not Now, When: Achieving Equality for Women Attorneys in the Courtroom and in ADR. Richard Lewis, New York State Bar Association president, said of Tracee’s work: “In boardrooms and courtrooms, she exerts her influence as a powerful litigator and role model to encourage more women and attorneys of color to be part of the next generation of attorneys.”

In 2023, Tracee received the Hon. Shira A. Scheindlin Award for Excellence in the Courtroom.