Puerto Rican Bar Association, Inc. (PRBA)

Mission Statement

The Puerto Rican Bar Association, Inc. (PRBA) was founded in 1957. Its purpose is to offer both personal and professional support to Puerto Rican and Latino attorneys and address the concerns of a rapidly growing Latino community.

The PRBA represents the interests of attorneys, judges, law professors, and students of Latino descent who share a common interest in fostering professional development in the legal community and addressing issues that are important not only to the Puerto Rican community but the Latino community as a whole.

We are all well aware of the many responsibilities and challenges these positions entail and we are eager to get to work. In the end, we may not achieve everything we wish to accomplish, but, expect that with every PRBA member’s help, we will write another chapter in the long tradition of excellence of the PRBA.

— This, we believe is our responsibility, and right, as Puerto Rican lawyers and members of the Puerto Rican Bar Association.

A History of Service

The words in this mission statement are born out of a sense of duty and commitment to the Puerto Rican community and to those Puerto Rican pioneer lawyers that founded this organization as part of their struggle to make sure that future generations of Puerto Rican and Latinos would have the same rights and privileges that everyone else is entitled to by virtue of one’s full citizenship.

Since its formation in 1957, the Puerto Rican Bar Association, Inc, (PRBA), has served as a model of what a legal professional organization should strive for in serving its members and the larger community. It has grown from a handful of Puerto Rican members to hundreds of lawyers committed to meeting the new challenges confronting Latino lawyers in the legal profession and the myriad issues affecting the Latino community, and New York State as a whole.

Throughout the last 50 years, many Puerto Rican lawyers have stepped up to provide leadership in the PRBA, to pay tribute to the contributions of those members of the association who came before them, and to follow in their tradition. Each team of lawyers, Presidents, and Officers of the Board of Directors, who accepted responsibility for moving the organization forward were reflective of their time and tackled the issues of their day.

Puerto Rican Bar Association, Inc. (PRBA)

Mission Statement

— This, we believe is our responsibility, and right, as Puerto Rican lawyers and members of the Puerto Rican Bar Association.

A History of Service

Read more about the Puerto Rican Bar Association and the Puerto Rican Bar Association Scholarship Fund history