Cibella was sworn in as president of the organization by Justice Matthew J. D’Emic, administrative judge of Kings County Supreme Court, Criminal Term. Along with Cibella, Christopher Wright was sworn in as the new executive vice president, Darren Fields as treasurer and Susan Mitchell as secretary of the KCCBA.

The new slate of vice presidents includes Arthur Aidala, Michael Hueston, Michael Millet and Estelle Roond. New members of the board of directors include Allana Alexander, Kieran Hologan and David Roche.

Farkas, who served as KCCBA president for the past two years, thanked many of the members who helped him along the way and reflected on some of his achievements as president. He said that the achievement he was most proud of was when he helped to raise the profile of the organization within the legal community.

“When you look around, every stakeholder is here,” Farkas said. “This only creates a breeding ground for cooperation and exchange of ideas that improve the system for everybody. If I could give one piece of advice for a young lawyer starting out it would be [to] come here and soak it up like a sponge.”

Once Cibella was officially sworn in, he expressed his excitement about his new position, thanked many of his colleagues who helped him and discussed some of his plans for the upcoming year.

“Wow. As I look around, this is pretty wild,” Cibella said. “I’m very moved by all the outpouring of support and the kind words. I’m just a kid from Brooklyn, 13th Avenue. There are no lawyers in my family. I never thought I would be a lawyer, but here I am 20 years after starting, standing in front of this room filled with accomplished attorneys and judges of the criminal justice community. This is an incredible honor.”

Cibella discussed working with Judge Michael Yavinsky, supervising judge of the Criminal Court, to make sure that those who can afford attorneys aren’t taking advantage of the tax payer by having attorneys appointed to them. He also discussed setting up a scholarship for a Brooklyn Law School student. Those two programs were started by Farkas.

He also mentioned upcoming Continuing Legal Education (CLE) seminar and said that the group is working on getting NYPD Commissioner James P. O’Neill and Alan Dershowitz to come and present CLEs. Cibella also plans on having the KCCBA work with the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office on some of its projects. He also plans on starting a golf outing to raise money for other charitable donations.

“I’m excited about getting more involved in the community,” Cibella said. “We’re more financially stable than we’ve been and we can start to do something with that money.”

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