The winners of the IrishCentral Legal Elite Awards 2026 have been announced.
The third annual IrishCentral Legal Elite Awards return to Manhattan this month, and the eight names on the list say a good deal about what the Irish-American legal community actually values.
There is a man who talked a board out of closing a 160-year-old charity hospital and then spent two decades rebuilding it. There is an entertainment lawyer who beat a sitting president in a copyright case. There is a decorated police officer who put himself through law school on night shifts and now runs one of the largest departments in his county. There is a solicitor from Limerick who has quietly steered a generation of Irish law graduates into the New York market, and an associate from West Cork who has already argued his way to the steps of the Supreme Court.
The winners were chosen from 14 nominees by an independent panel of six judges, each of whom was a winner at the 2025 awards. Every nominee was scored out of 100 across seven criteria, four of them universal and three specific to the category.
The awards are run in partnership with the Irish American Bar Association of New York and the Brehon Law Society of New York, with the National Law Review as media partner.
Lifetime Achievement Award
Brian O'Dwyer
Partner Emeritus, O'Dwyer & Bernstien, and co-founder of the Emerald Isle Immigration Center
Brian O'Dwyer.
Brian O'Dwyer has spent more than forty years using the law to defend immigrants, and he comes by it honestly. His father, Paul, emigrated from Mayo to Brooklyn in 1925 and became one of New York's great civil rights lawyers and president of the City Council. His uncle William was mayor of New York from 1945 to 1950. Brian practiced almost his whole career at O'Dwyer & Bernstien, the Manhattan firm his father founded.
In 1988, he co-founded the Emerald Isle Immigration Center out of a small office in Woodside, Queens, growing out of the Irish Immigration Reform Movement. It is now the largest Irish immigrant center in the United States, with a second home in Woodlawn in the Bronx, and it has never asked anyone coming through the door whether they were documented. He also persuaded the Koch administration to open New York's public colleges to students regardless of immigration status, a policy SUNY later adopted.
He traveled with President Bill Clinton on all three of his trips to Ireland and advised the White House on the peace process. He has served as a Commissioner of the US National Commission for UNESCO, a Commissioner of the New York City Human Rights Commission, and, since 2022, as Chair of the New York State Gaming Commission. He was grand marshal of the 2019 New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade, holds the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and has honorary degrees from Dublin City University and Middlebury College.
On stepping back from the day-to-day running of the firm, he said he intended to keep “fighting for people that don't have people to fight for them.”
He joins Joe Crowley, honored in 2025, and Bruce Morrison, honored in 2024, on the Lifetime Achievement roll.
Outstanding Community Service Award
Sean T. Granahan
President and General Counsel, The Floating Hospital
Sean T. Granahan.
Sean Granahan was a corporate attorney on Park Avenue when The Floating Hospital came across his desk as a pro bono client. He liked the place enough to leave private practice for it, and he tells the story of flinging his watch away on his last day because he would never again have to bill anyone in six-minute increments.
In 2005, the board asked him, given his regulatory background, to manage the charity's closure. It was carrying a $2.78 million operating budget, $5.8 million in Medicaid bad debt, and a spent endowment. Instead, he asked for six months to turn it around, promising an orderly wind-down if he failed. Those six months became more than twenty years.
The Floating Hospital is now the only federally qualified health center in New York City focused on homeless families, and one of the city's last true charity hospitals, with a charity care rate near 25% against the 1% to 2% typical elsewhere. It opened a purpose-built flagship clinic in Long Island City in 2021, complete with a teaching kitchen built for families living in shelters and motels without working stoves. It runs clinics at Queensbridge Houses, in Brooklyn and Bronx family shelters, and at the PATH intake center, and a free shuttle service from shelters and domestic violence safe houses. Granahan oversees roughly 200 staff and around 62,000 patient visits a year.
The charity turns 160 this year, and he has announced his retirement several years in advance, so the transition can be done properly. As he once put it: “There should be a place in New York City for a group of exceptionally kind people who are interested in doing exceptionally kind things.”
Client Service Excellence Award
Wallace E. J. Collins III
Law Offices of Wallace E. J. Collins III, New York
Wallace E. J. Collins III.
Wallace Collins was a teenage recording artist signed to Epic Records before he ever saw the inside of Fordham Law School, which may explain why musicians have trusted him for thirty-five years.
His practice covers music, film, television, and internet deals, copyright and trademark, and the newer headaches of streaming, digital clearance, and artificial intelligence. He has registered and protected hundreds of federal trademarks across the arts, fashion, restaurants, and emerging technology, and has done extensive work on copyright terminations and reversions.
On the litigation side, his client Eddy Grant prevailed in a copyright infringement suit against Donald Trump and the 2020 campaign over the unauthorized use of “Electric Avenue”. Earlier, he won what was at the time the largest monetary judgment ever awarded for unauthorized use of a sample, in the case over “Whoomp! There It Is”.
What his nomination kept returning to was not the wins but the sharing. He is a regular contributor to Billboard, Entertainment Law and Finance, and the New York Law Journal, a frequent speaker on panels and at seminars internationally, and over the past year, he has lectured law students and undergraduates on the risks and rewards of AI in the entertainment business. Some of his clients have been with him for decades.
Public Interest Law Award
Patrick A. Frawley
Commissioner, Rockland County Department of Social Services
Patrick A. Frawley.
Patrick Frawley has given nearly three decades to public service, and he did the first half of it in uniform.
He joined the Orangetown Police Department in 1997 and served as a community police officer, a school resource officer, and a detective, becoming one of the department's most highly decorated members with more than forty commendations from the Town of Orangetown, the Rockland County PBA, the Police Chiefs' Association of Rockland County, and the American Legion. He also served as President of the Orangetown PBA.
He went back to school while working full time on the force, taking a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice Administration from Mountain State University summa cum laude and then a Juris Doctor from Pace Law School cum laude. He is admitted in New York, New Jersey, the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York, and the United States Supreme Court.
As an attorney, he represented police unions and first responders across the region and ran his own practice in Orangeburg. Super Lawyers named him a Rising Star in 2017. After the Parkland shooting, the Clarkstown Central School District brought him in to rebuild its school security program. From 2020, he served as Chief Assistant District Attorney for Rockland County, leading a team of more than ninety prosecutors, investigators, and staff, until County Executive Ed Day appointed him Commissioner of the Department of Social Services in 2026. He now leads one of the county's largest departments, responsible for public assistance and for child and adult protective services across thousands of Rockland families.
He is a member of the Rockland County Police Emerald Society, Division 3 of the Ancient Order of Hibernians in Pearl River, and the Rockland County Friendly Sons of St. Patrick. His honors include a 2024 New York State Senate Commendation and Citizen of the Year in 2021.
His nominator, Kevin T. Kelly, made the point plainly: at this stage of his life, Frawley could have chosen something more lucrative and more comfortable. One judge gave him full marks for bringing real legal expertise to that service rather than simply his time. Another wrote that the evidence shows a man of integrity.
Mentorship Award
Janet Walsh
In-House Counsel, Pfister Energy, and founding member of IABANY
Janet Walsh is one of the founding members of the Irish American Bar Association of New York, a past president, and a board member for thirty years until she stepped down this year.
Originally from Limerick City and a UCD law graduate, she emigrated to New York after her admission to the Roll of Solicitors in Ireland and was called to the New York Bar in 1995. She spent twenty-eight years as a toxic tort litigator at Locks Law Firm, ending as managing partner of its New York office. In 2023, she went back to school for a Master's in Sustainability Management at Columbia, graduating in December 2025. She likes to say her midlife crisis brought her to the climate crisis. She is now In-House Counsel at Pfister Energy.
At IABANY, she founded the Wild Geese Awards, given to Irish and Irish-American lawyers for their creative lives outside the law, and co-founded the annual Bloomsday event marking the role of Joyce's Ulysses in shaping American First Amendment jurisprudence, drawing speakers including Judge John Gleeson, Judge Reena Raggi, Judge Gerard Lynch, Judge Caitlin Halligan and the late Supreme Court Justice of Ireland Adrian Hardiman.
She has been named repeatedly to New York Metro Super Lawyers and the Irish Legal 100, and in 2009, the Irish Voice named her one of the 75 Most Influential Irish American Women. She spent four years judging high school speech and debate tournaments at weekends, volunteered with Yonkers Partners in Education guiding students through college applications, and is mentoring a fellow through the Ceannas House Transatlantic Leaders Fellowship.
Her nominator, JaneAnne Murray, noted that she has never turned down a request for a coffee, a chat or a CV review, and summed it up in five words: “Janet should get this award every year.”
Rising Star Award
Eoin Moynihan
Commercial disputes associate, Cullen & Dykman LLP, Albany
Eoin Moynihan.
Eoin Moynihan is a commercial disputes associate at Cullen & Dykman in Albany, a West Cork native and a University College Cork law graduate, and his early career has been improbably global.
He has practiced as a New York attorney across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East for multinationals, sovereign governments, and startups in energy, technology, finance, construction, shipping, and aviation. He clerked for the Hon. Victor J. Wolski at the US Court of Federal Claims, is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, and holds bar admissions in New York, the District of Columbia, Ireland, and England and Wales, as well as admission to the Supreme Court of the United States. He sits on the Arbitrator Panel for Trade Disputes Between the European Union and Third Countries, the Asian International Arbitration Center panels, and the Singapore International Arbitration Center reserve panel.
In recent months, he was counsel of record on a successful emergency application for an injunction to the Supreme Court of the United States in a novel redistricting case, a matter of a scale usually handled by far more senior practitioners.
The past twelve months also brought Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch in America 2026, the 2025 Champions for Justice Immigration Award from the Erie County Bar Association's Volunteer Lawyers Project, and a third consecutive New York State Bar Association Empire State Counsel honor for pro bono work. He is a Lieutenant in the US Coast Guard Reserve as a Reserve Judge Advocate, having enlisted as a Seaman shortly after he emigrated, and sits on the board of the Albany Rebels GAA club.
Human Rights Defender Award
Seán Pender
National President, Ancient Order of Hibernians
Seán Pender.
Seán Pender is National President of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the oldest and largest Irish Catholic fraternal organization in the United States, which he leads from Hamilton, New Jersey.
Human rights have been the defining theme of his presidency on both sides of the Atlantic. He has been among the most persistent American voices pressing for a full public inquiry into the murder of Seán Brown, speaking out against attempts to block it, and he welcomed the Garvaghy Road decision on behalf of the Order. Where others have been content to issue a statement and move on, he has kept returning to the cases that matter.
He has also widened the Order itself. The AOH's At Large program, developed under his leadership, opens membership to Irish Americans living beyond the reach of a local division, so that geography no longer decides who can take part.
He receives the Human Rights Defender Award for that work and for a career spent insisting that the Irish-American voice counts for something when it is used.
Technology and Law Award
Anthony J. FitzPatrick
Partner and Chair, Patent Litigation Division, Duane Morris LLP, Boston
Anthony FitzPatrick is a partner at Duane Morris in Boston and chair of the firm's Patent Litigation Division within its Intellectual Property Practice Group.
A Wexford man, he took a Bachelor of Civil Law at University College Dublin in 1986 and was called to the Bar at the Honorable Society of King's Inns in Dublin in 1988, before taking his Juris Doctor at Boston University School of Law in 1993. He is admitted in both Massachusetts and the Republic of Ireland.
His practice covers patent, trade secret and technology litigation, with a particular concentration in life sciences disputes across pharmaceuticals, biologics, medical devices and diagnostics, including Hatch-Waxman litigation. He has been lead counsel at trial in federal and state courts and in arbitration, and has argued before the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. He sits on the American Arbitration Association's panel of arbitrators.
He has been named an IP Star by Managing Intellectual Property in 2013 and every year from 2015 to 2025, a Massachusetts Go To Lawyer for IP Law, and a Massachusetts and New England Super Lawyer. He chairs Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education's annual New England Intellectual Property Conference, and received the Boston Bar Association's President's Award in 2016 for his service on its Amicus Committee.
The Judges
There is a neat symmetry to the 2026 panel. Every one of the six judges won a Legal Elite award in 2025. Each nominee was scored independently out of 100, with 60 points across four universal criteria and 40 across three specific to the category.
- Michael Breen, Outstanding Community Service Award 2025
- Daniel S. Connolly, Client Service Excellence Award 2025
- Anna Marie Gallagher, Human Rights Defender Award 2025
- Mary Cecelia Johnson, Rising Star Award 2025
- Burton T. Ryan Jr., Public Interest Law Award 2025
- Arthur J. Smith, Mentorship Award 2025
IrishCentral is grateful to all six for the time they gave to the process.
Attending on the night
The 2026 IrishCentral Legal Elite Awards take place on Thursday, 12 November, at Rosie O'Grady's Main Hall, 800 Seventh Avenue, Midtown Manhattan. Doors open at 6.30pm, with a networking reception from 6.45pm, the awards presentation from 7.30pm, and further networking until 9.30pm. Dress is business casual.