Brian O'Dwyer, who has spent more than four decades using the law to defend immigrants and advance the cause of Ireland in America, has been named the recipient of the IrishCentral Legal Elite 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award. He will accept the honor at Rosie O'Grady's in New York City on Thursday, November 12.
A career of profound impact
The Lifetime Achievement Award is the headline honor of the IrishCentral Legal Elite Awards, which recognize the most distinguished leaders of the Irish American legal community and celebrate excellence, integrity and service in law. The award goes to a lawyer whose career has left a lasting mark on both the profession and the wider community.
O'Dwyer is a titan of the Irish-American legal community and a relentless champion for immigrant rights. He has spent his career advocating for the marginalized.
The son of the legendary Paul O’Dwyer, Brian practiced at O’Dwyer & Bernstien and founded the Emerald Isle Immigration Center, helping thousands of Irish immigrants navigate life in the US.
O'Dwyer follows former Congressman Joe Crowley, who received the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2025, and former Congressman Bruce Morrison, the 2024 honoree, whose Morrison visa program transformed the lives of tens of thousands of Irish immigrants.
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Former Congressman Joe Crowley the 2025 Legal Elite Lifetime Achievements Award honree and the other prise winners.
Following his father up Fifth Avenue
O'Dwyer was born into one of the best known families in Irish New York. His father, Paul O'Dwyer, left Mayo for Brooklyn in 1925 and became a celebrated civil rights lawyer and president of the New York City Council. His uncle, William O'Dwyer, served as mayor of New York from 1945 to 1950.
After earning degrees at George Washington University, Middlebury College and Georgetown, O'Dwyer spent almost his entire legal career at O'Dwyer & Bernstien, the downtown Manhattan firm his father founded. The practice built its reputation on personal injury, construction accidents, immigration rights, labor relations and commercial litigation, and he has been cited as a New York Super Lawyer since the ranking began.
His most enduring legacy may be the Emerald Isle Immigration Center, which he co-founded in 1988 in a small office in Woodside, Queens. It grew out of the Irish Immigration Reform Movement of the 1980s, and O'Dwyer has said he wanted an advice center that would look after everyone, documented and undocumented alike. Today it is the largest Irish immigrant center in the United States, with a second base on Katonah Avenue in Woodlawn in the Bronx, and its work now spans social work, mental health support, services for aging Irish Americans and advocacy across the wider immigrant community.
He also persuaded the administration of the late Mayor Ed Koch to open New York's public colleges to students regardless of immigration status after a young undocumented Irish woman was told she could not continue her studies. That policy change, later adopted by SUNY, opened the door to a university education for thousands of young people of every nationality. Speaking about his retirement from day to day management of the firm, O'Dwyer said he intended to keep "fighting for people that don't have people to fight for them."
From the Peace Process to the parade
O'Dwyer was a founding member of the Irish American Democrats and the National Democratic Ethnic Coordinating Committee, and he traveled with President Bill Clinton on each of his three trips to Ireland while serving as an advisor to the White House on Irish issues, including the Northern Ireland peace process.
In 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appointed him a commissioner of the United States National Commission for UNESCO. He has also served as a commissioner of the New York City Human Rights Commission, and since 2022 he has chaired the New York State Gaming Commission.
His service to Ireland has run in parallel. He has chaired the Irish Chamber of Commerce USA, served as international chair of the board of Ireland West Airport in Knock, County Mayo, and holds honorary degrees from Dublin City University and Middlebury College. In 2022, Queen's University Belfast invited him to deliver the annual Irish Studies International Lecture, where he spoke on Irish America from the Troubles to Brexit.
In 2019, he was grand marshal of the New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade, following his father and his uncle up Fifth Avenue. He has also been named a Knight of the Holy Sepulcher and has received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor. Reflecting on the generations of Irish immigrants who built his family's life in New York, O'Dwyer has said that "we became the heirs to that tradition of a helping hand."
2026 IrishCentral Legal Elite Awards
Tickets are now available for the 2026 IrishCentral Legal Elite Awards, which will take place on Thursday, November 12, at Rosie O'Grady's, 148 West 51st Street, New York.
Alongside the Lifetime Achievement Award, the evening will recognize winners in categories including the Rising Star Award, Outstanding Community Service, Client Service Excellence, Public Interest Law, Mentorship, Technology and Law, and the Human Rights Defender Award. Nominations are open through the IrishCentral awards page, and this year's judging panel is made up of the 2025 winners, among them Daniel S. Connolly, Mary Cecelia Johnson, Burton T. Ryan Jr., Arthur J. Smith, Anna Marie Gallagher and Michael Breen.
The awards are run in partnership with the Irish American Bar Association of New York and the Brehon Law Society of New York, with the National Law Review as media partner. Tickets and sponsorship details are available at irishcentral.com/irishcentral-legal-elite-awards.