Queens County Bar Association celebrates 150 years
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The Golia family, including former Associate Justices Joseph and James Golia, current Associate Justice Donna-Marie Golia and court attorney Michael Golia, were honored by the Queens County Bar Association during the organization’s 150th anniversary celebration at Queens Criminal Court on Thursday, Sept. 17, 2026. Eagle photo by Walter Karling
By Noah Powelson
For a century and a half, the histories of Queens Supreme Civil Court and the Queens County Bar Association have been tied together.
Their shared pasts are etched onto the courthouse’s walls, where a pair of murals have sat for nearly 90 years thanks to fundraising efforts undertaken by the local bar association in 1939. It’s also seen in the custom fireplace imported from England and placed in the courthouse’s first floor by the QCBA, which had its headquarters in the Jamaica courthouse in the early 20th century.
But the QCBA’s legacy in Queens’ courts isn’t just physical – for many, it’s also personal.
Nearly every judge who has sat on the bench in Queens for the past 150 years has done so with the support of the local bar association, the fourth oldest bar association in New York State.
The close connection between the bar association and the court was on display on Thursday, as Queens’ legal community celebrated the bar association’s 150th anniversary in Queens Supreme Court, Civil Term.
Legacy was the theme for the afternoon and was exemplified by retired Queens County Surrogate Judge Louis Laurino, who turned 97 this year and spoke to attendees.
Laurino was the president of the QCBA in 1971, the same year he was elected as the county’s Surrogate judge. He served in the powerful judicial position until 1991, and continued to practice law for the next 20 years after leaving the bench.
Laurino said that his success, as well as the development of Queens County, can be traced back to the work of the QCBA.
“The bar association means so much to me,” Laurino said. “I have every reason to believe that your continued success will mean a great deal to the continued growth of Queens County.”
“In my opinion, future mayors of the city of New York will come from this bar association,” Laurino added.
Chief Administrative Judge Joseph Zayas also appeared on Thursday and said that bar associations like the QCBA are vital for the long-term health of the state’s court system.
“We need to teach our fellow New Yorkers why we need an independent judiciary, and most of all, lawyers need to show every person in this country why the rule of law is a bedrock principle, a foundational pillar of free people,” Zayas said. “The chief judge and I view our relationship with [QCBA] and other bar associations as an integral part of our mission to reduce backlogs, make our courts stronger, and provide access to justice.”
During the celebration last week, the QCBA also honored several members of the Golia family who have served in various roles in the borough’s court system for generations.
The Golia family includes two retired state Supreme Court justices and a current associate justice of the Appellate Division, Second Department. Accepting the QCBA’s legacy awards were former Associate Justices Joseph and James Golia, current Associate Justice Donna-Marie Golia and Michael Golia, who serves as a court attorney in Queens Civil Court.
Donna-Marie Golia thanked the bar association on behalf of her family for the recognition, saying that it reflected the hard work of her grandparents and great-grandparents – many of whom had little access to education but who taught their children the importance of perseverance.
“I fear that I cannot put into words how much this day really means to the Golia family,” she said. “It is our sincerest hope that the next generations will see the immensely rewarding profession that is the law, and that they too will continue to give back to the Queens legal community.”
The event was a celebration of the impact a bar association can have on the communities it serves, even as recent trends show that younger attorneys are less likely to join their local bar association.
Bar associations across the country have seen declines in their membership in recent years and have struggled to find new ways to attract new members. Queens is no exception.
The New York State Bar Association, which also recently celebrated its 150th anniversary, said it has seen membership drop every year since 2001. At its height, NYSBA had around 75,000 members, but now has around 55,000.
Likewise, the American Bar Association, the largest bar association in the country, saw a 43 percent drop in membership over a span of nine years, according to a 2025 Reuters report.
In Queens, only around 10 percent of practicing attorneys are members of the QCBA, according to the bar association’s president, Joshua Katz, who has also expressed concern about the bar association’s long-term future.
But even as the landscape of the borough’s legal community has changed over the years, the work of the bar association has not, according to Kristen Dubowski-Barba, Katz’s predecessor as QCBA president.
“For 150 years, the Queens County Bar Association has served the legal community and the people of Queens,” Dubowski-Barba said. “Throughout that history, one of our fundamental principles has been maintaining a strong relationship between the bench and the bar, working side-by-side in service of the administration of justice.”
“The people have changed,” Dubowski-Barba added. “Our courthouse has changed. The practice of law has certainly changed, but that relationship and that responsibility remains.”
