Rain was sheeting down Seventh Avenue on Thursday night, which Brian O'Dwyer pronounced truly Mayo weather. Inside Rosie O'Grady's Main Hall, the veteran Manhattan lawyer accepted the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2026 IrishCentral Legal Elite Awards and then promptly gave it away.
Brian O'Dwyer opened by telling the room it had been a great year and asked them to agree. "Has this not been a great year?" Then he counted the reasons. Mayo won the All-Ireland. The Democrats took back Congress. And he got this award.
He also ranked them. "Of all the three, forgive me, Mayo taking back the All-Ireland, it's the best of them all."
O'Dwyer thanked his wife, Marianna, who could not be there, and who he said has been the managing partner of the O'Dwyer family all these years. He thanked his daughter Kathleen and the wider family seated across the hall.
That led him into a story. Years ago in Ireland with the Clintons, he asked Hillary Clinton whether he might invite a few relations to breakfast on the trip. She said yes. A hundred and eighty of them showed up.
Two organizations defined him as a lawyer, he said, the Irish American Bar Association and the Brehon Law Society. Both are partners in these awards.
Of the Brehons, he allowed himself a short boast. "We make judges. You know, we do."
He singled out Kelly O'Neill Levy and the society's newest judge, Jennifer Fanzola. He had run into her a few days earlier and asked how she was keeping. She told him, "Your Honor, please."
He added that he was proud to be a lifetime member of Division Three of the Ancient Order of Hibernians.
Brian O'Dwyer, winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2026 IrishCentral Legal Elite.
Nobody ever got turned away
Then he handed the award to other people.
"It is not my award," he said. "It's the award of the people who have fought so hard over the years for immigrants."
When the Emerald Isle Immigration Center was founded, he said, one principle sat at the center of it: "nobody ever got turned away from our door."
The Irish were whom the founders set out to serve, but word traveled down the street, and thousands came.
"The Irish would take care of anybody who came there."
He thanked Siobhán Dennehy, the center's executive director, for the work of all those years.
Chair of IrishCentral Liam Lynch and Brian O'Dwyer.
O'Dwyer thanked Stella O'Leary of Irish American Democrats, who had come up from Washington through the same rain. The two have been warriors together since the Clinton days, he said.
Speaking of Northern Ireland, he said peace is not perfect, "but no mother in Northern Ireland has to go to bed wondering whether her son is going to come home."
That, he said, is the legacy of Bill Clinton and of the work they did together.
Kindness, copyright and Garvaghy Road
The Outstanding Community Service Award went to Sean T. Granahan, president and general counsel of The Floating Hospital. He talked about the kindness of the people who work there and who make the place what it is, then asked the room to donate if they could.
Liam Lynch and Outstanding Community Service Award winner, Sean T. Granahan.
Wallace E. J. Collins III, a New York entertainment and intellectual property lawyer, picked up Client Service Excellence. He walked the room through his copyright win against Donald Trump's 2020 campaign over Eddy Grant's "Electric Avenue."
Wallace E. J. Collins III who took home the Client Service Excellence Award.
Janet Walsh, in-house counsel at Pfister Energy and a founding member of the Irish American Bar Association of New York, collected the Mentorship Award. Her theme was making time for young Irish arrivals, the coffee and the advice, and the welcome into a community they had only just left behind at home.
Janet Walsh who won the Mentorship Award.
Rising Star went to Eoin Moynihan, a commercial disputes associate at Cullen & Dykman in Albany. America, he said, is still one of the few countries where an immigrant can arrive and excel in the legal system.
The Legal Elite's Rising Star Eoin Rising Star, Eoin Moynihan, and Liam Lynch.
Patrick A. Frawley, commissioner of the Rockland County Department of Social Services, was recognized for Public Interest Law. He credited his colleagues in Rockland and the immigrant story and upbringing that got him there.
Patrick A. Frawley, winner of the Public Interest Law.
Seán Pender, national president of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, accepted the Human Rights Defender Award. He raised Garvaghy Road, the inquiry into the murder of Sean Brown, and the legal research work the AOH funds in the North.
Sean Pender winner of the Human Rights Defender Award.
The Technology and Law Award belonged to Anthony J. FitzPatrick, partner and chair of the patent litigation division at Duane Morris in Boston, who accepted in absentia.
Liam Lynch, chairman of IrishCentral, was MC for the evening. Deniz Ozturk, acting deputy consul general of Ireland in New York, attended and was thanked from the stage.
With thanks
The IrishCentral Legal Elite Awards 2026 are run in partnership with the Irish American Bar Association of New York, the Brehon Law Society, The National Law Review, Ireland for Law, and the Ancient Order of Hibernians, including Hibernian Charity.
With thanks to our supporters, The Floating Hospital, Burdzy and Associates, and Irish American Democrats.
