Welcome to the National Italian American Bar Association (NIABA). It is my hope that you find our organization not only helpful from many perspectives, but also culturally and professionally nourishing as well as creating the prospect of lifetime relationships through out the country and beyond.
We are a non-profit, non-partisan corporation, founded in 1983 to advance the interests of the Italian-American legal community and to improve the administration of justice. NIABA members include judges, law professors, law students, and attorneys in both private and public sectors. Our Board members serve without compensation while generously providing their time and personal costs to attend our meetings usually three times a year, all from very challenging schedules.
Our purpose is to unite with lawyers, judges, law professors, and law students of Italian heritage -- whether native born or of Italian descent -- in building a professional network while promoting and perpetuating the spirit of our Italian culture and heritage in various social venues.
We offer a national voice by virtue of our membership throughout the United States (and more recently expanding in Canada) wherein we communicate the views of its members to federal and state officials on matters of common concern in order to improve the administration of justice. NIABA also sponsors dignified events recognizing legal professionals for distinguished achievements in public service and professional accomplishments.
We also have a history of offering scholarships to Italian-American law students to advance their education, both from our direct organization as well as in joint efforts in the past with NIAF (National Italian American Foundation) and most currently with OSIA (Order Sons of Italy in America).
In addition to excellent referral opportunities via this website, NIABA membership entitles you to free subscriptions to The Digest, a distinguished law journal and formidable publication published with the help of Syracuse University School of Law, and our periodic NIABA News, an informative newsletter. Opportunities present themselves to network with many of the nation’s foremost attorneys by way of our directory, website, conventions, meetings and continuing legal education events including, most recently, a CLE seminar on recent developments in Immigration Law held last October in conjunction with the NIAF Annual Black-Tie Gala in Washington, DC.
Our membership supports our law student chapters and scholarships and the Judicial Nomination Committee, which offers recommendations of qualified candidates to judicial positions at state and federal level, while fostering camaraderie, respect and civility at times when our professional heritage is often beleaguered by unfair criticism.
Unlike any other bar association, we offer the opportunity to be nourished with a common culture and heritage that reaches back hundreds, if not thousands, of years with contributions to our legal profession that are as relevant today as they were in their inception years past.
As such, we are comprised of men and women sharing a common unique heritage in a chosen profession.
Although we may not be as large in numbers as the American Bar Association, we are large enough to count and small enough to care.
I invite your inquiry and membership into this organization. I welcome and entertain any inquiry or questions you may have regarding same. Feel free to contact me.
Distinti Saluti,
Frank J. Schiro
NIABA President
