Sybil Shainwald

The struggle for women’s rights is one of the great movements in our history and it continues to have a profound impact on our society. In the last 25 years, the quality of women’s health care has become an integral part of that struggle and one that is of passionate concern in this country and around the world. After appearing before him hundreds of times, championing for the rights of her clients, Judge Jack B. Weinstein formed the opinion that Sybil Shainwald’s ‘compassion and professional skills have ennobled the practice of law.’

Sybil Shainwald was a consumer advocate even before she studied law.  As Director of the Study Center for the Consumer Movement at Consumers Union, Ms. Shainwald applied for and was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Grant to establish the Center.  She accomplished this while attending New York Law School’s evening division from which she received a J.D. in 1976.  She subsequently was admitted to the New York Bar in 1977.

Sybil Shainwald is dedicated to advocating for safe and effective healthcare for women.  She pioneered DES litigation and was co-counsel in Bichler v. Lilly, the nation’s first “DES Daughter” legal victory in 1979.  From then on she has represented thousands of DES daughters and sons.  An accomplished attorney, she proved that DES-exposed individuals had been harmed after the pharmaceutical industry failed to test the safety of DES, and continually promoted the drug even after it was known to be a carcinogenic and absolutely ineffective.

As a litigator she has transformed the practice of mass torts in order to advocate with regards to health issues for American women, and women in developing nations.  She represented two thousand women in the Dalkon Shield class action suit and obtained equality for those women in Bangladesh, India, Kenya and China.

Ms. Shainwald represents the women of the world in breast implant litigation, and successfully set up a $25 million fund for the benefit of women outside the United States.  She also filed a class action resulting in an Emergency Fund for DES daughters.

Sybil Shainwald has been a pioneer in many areas of women’s health, bringing the initial cases for the lactation suppressant, Parlodel, and the pregnancy test, Chorionic Villus Sampling.  She was instrumental in expanding the Statute of Limitations for latent injuries in New York, and filed the first case under the Revival and Discovery Statute. She also lobbied for, and was successful in, changing the laws in New York in Office Based Surgery so that guidelines were developed to protect women and others from procedures done in physician’s offices.

Ms. Shainwald has been a force in the campaign for proactive education and information dissemination from Appalachia to Africa.  She served as Chair of the National Women’s Health Network, was a founding member of Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, and a member of the Food and Drug Administration’s Consumer Consortium.  She assisted in the development and served as a representative of the End-of-the-Decade Conference on Women and was a health advisor to the United Methodist Church. She was integral in the development of the First Rural Women’s Health Conference in Appalachia and the First Black Women’s Health Conference in Atlanta.

Her professional writings, lectures, media appearances, and testimony before congressional committees and the FDA have raised the national consciousness on crucial women’s health issues. For these, and many other accomplishments, Sybil Shainwald, was the first woman to receive the New York Law School President’s Medal. This medal is awarded to the institution’s most outstanding and accomplished alumni.  Both her legal and academic careers are exemplary. She received a Rockefeller Foundation award for her work in consumer affairs, was Phi Beta Kappa and the President Bryan Scholar at the College of William and Mary, and she also was awarded the Edward Coles scholarship.  Ms. Shainwald received a B.A. from the College of William and Mary, a M.A. from Columbia University, and a J.D. from New York Law School.

Sybil Shainwald has said that her purpose in going to law school was to “make a perfect world, and in this I’ve been eminently unsuccessful.” Nevertheless, as her numerous accomplishments indicate, she has been eminently successful in combating major forms of injustice in the exceptionally important areas of women’s health care and litigation.  “Sybil Shainwald is passionate about DES issues and cares, really cares, about the DES exposed—she has changed the course of our lives and our movement”  (Joyce Bichler, the first DES Daughter to successfully file DES litigation in Bichler v. Lilly).