On May 17th, 2022, we spent an evening honoring and celebrating 25 years of the Center alongside our supporters and partners.
On May 17th, 2022, we spent an evening honoring and celebrating 25 years of the Center alongside our supporters and partners.
The Honorable Jonathan Lippman, former New York State Chief Judge and Of Counsel, Latham & Watkins
Shaun Leonardo, Artist and Advocate
JPMorgan Chase & Co.
The Tow Foundation

Together, we can achieve justice and equity; create safe, healthy, and thriving communities; and transform justice systems.
The Center of Court Innovation works to achieve justice and equity, create safe and thriving communities, and, ultimately, transform justice systems. Hear Center leaders and experts in the field discuss the Center’s origin story and the progress we’ve made in our first 25 years.
Judge Jonathan Lippman played an essential role in helping found the Center for Court Innovation in 1996 and supporting it during his tenures as New York State’s chief administrative judge (1996-2007) and chief judge (2009-2015). As a leader, he championed a wide range of reforms. He made New York a leader in the development of problem-solving courts, such as drug treatment and domestic violence courts, to improve outcomes for victims, litigants, and communities. He also strengthened access to justice initiatives by, among other things, providing more funding for civil legal services and resources for self-represented litigants.
Center Executive Director Courtney Bryan, left, joined by emcee and CNN anchor Don Lemon and Lifetime Achievement Award honoree Jonathan Lippman.
Queens-born and Brooklyn-based artist, performer, and advocate Shaun Leonardo, and our Community Innovator honoree, has played a key role in using art to help communities and those impacted by the justice system thrive, including by working with our Project Reset diversion programming.
Saadiq Newton-Boyd, right, presents the Community Innovator Award to Shaun Leonardo.
Our Corporate Innovator honoree, JPMorgan Chase, has been a leader in fostering employment through its Second Chance Agenda, which seeks to remove the barriers to employment and economic opportunity facing the millions of Americans with an arrest or conviction record.
Accepting the Corporate Innovator Award on behalf of JPMorgan Chase are Parag V. Mehta and Nan Gibson of the JPMorgan Chase Policy Center.
The Tow Foundation received the “Philanthropic Innovator” award at our 25th Anniversary benefit for supporting new ideas and initiatives that promote a more equitable, fair, and safe justice system, with the ultimate goal of ending mass criminalization.
Courtney Bryan, left, joined by Leonard Tow and Emily Tow of The Tow Foundation.
How can you engage, impact, and transform? Center staff share what this work means to them. “Transforming justice IS the Center for Court Innovation.”