José A. Cabranes, U.S. Circuit Judge for the Second Circuit, Portrait Dedication [6:47-11:47]

Also, we welcome the former President of the Hispanic National Bar Association and Chairman Emeritus of the Board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, Carlos A. Ortiz. Mr. Ortiz is the General Counsel of Goya Foods Inc. Finally, I wish to extend a very warm welcome to the judges' family members who are present here today. We have with us Judge Cabranas' wife, Professor Kate Stiff Cabranas, his daughter Jennifer C. Braceris and her husband Roberto Braceris, his son Alejo Cabranas, his aunt Ida Plyphoris and her daughter Katina Plyphoris and his cousins Jaime and Mary Lopez, especially warm welcome to you. Our Master of Ceremonies today is one of Judge Cabranas' former law clerks, Jesse Furman. He has been the leader of the Law Clerks Project to commission the Portrait of Judge Cabranas. Mr. Furman is a career federal prosecutor who clerked also for Judge Michael McKasey in the Southern District of New York and for Justice David Souter. Since his clerkship on the Supreme Court, he has been an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York with notable experience in terrorism prosecutions. He served for two years as Counselor to the Attorney General of the United States and is now the Deputy Chief of the Appeals Unit in the Southern District, Mr. Furman. Thank you, Judge Thompson, for that overly kind introduction and may it please the court. It is with great pleasure that I welcome you here on behalf of all of Judge Cabranas' law clerks. We organized this event and commissioned the Portrait that you will see shortly as a tribute to Judge Cabranas' 30 remarkable years on the bench, although just for the record, it's 31 and a half or so and counting. That said, I can't think of any more fitting tribute to the Judge's service than your presence here today and I thank you for that. I want to make one thing clear at the outset. In commissioning this Portrait, the Judge's law clerks do not mean to suggest that he is in any way shall we say on the Wayne. Far from it, as anyone who knows the Judge or has seen him recently knows, he's as active as he ever was and I expect he will remain that way. We simply decided that it was an appropriate time to express our appreciation, our affection, and our admiration for a tremendous public servant, a mentor, and a friend, and speaking personally, Judge, I can tell you that I feel truly blessed to count you as one of my friends and my mentor and put simply without you, I would not be half the lawyer or the person I am today. So the point of that is you should not consider this or view it as any sort of retirement party instead and perhaps mindful of the fact that Judge Cabronna knows more Yiddish than my grandparents ever did. You should look at it as a bar mitzvah. So, Mausletov Judge, before I turn the podium over to the first of our speakers, I just want to acknowledge and say thank you on behalf of all the law clerks to a number of people without whom today literally would not have happened. First, thank you to Judge Thompson and to the rest of the court for hosting us and having us here today. Thank you as well to Robin Tabura, the clerk of the district court, and not incidentally, the judges that is Judge Cabronna's first courtroom deputy. She and her staff, especially Maria Carpenter and Wanda Hawkins, have worked tirelessly and I emphasized tirelessly in recent weeks, especially to make this event happen. Thank you as well to our hosts, that is the Yale Law School, and specifically to Dean