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Sybil Shainwald was a consumer advocate even before she studied law. As the Director of the Study Center for the Consumer Movement at Consumers Union, Ms. Shainwald was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to establish the Center for the Study of the Consumer Movement. She accomplished this while attending New York Law School’s evening division from which she received a JD in 1976. Her legal career has focused almost exclusively on women’s health issues. She was co-counsel in the nation’s first DES daughter victory, Bichler v. Eli Lilly, and won a $42.5 million verdict in a consolidated DES case for 11 women. She has successfully litigated thousands of cases involving drugs and devices harmful to women and their children. Ms. Shainwald represented 1,500 Dalkon Shield clients, and has been successful in numerous mass tort litigations. Ms. Shainwald also litigated the first successful Paralodel case, a lactation suppressant, the first chorionic villus sampling case, a pre-natal test, and has done other ground-breaking work in the area of pharmaceutical litigation. Additionally, she was instrumental in changing the Statute of Limitations in New York to a discovery statute and filed the first case under the Revival Statute. Throughout her career, Sybil Shainwald conducted meetings in places as far as Kenya and Costa Rica to acquaint women to the toxicity of various products aimed at women, including Depo Provera, Norplant, silicone breast implants, and other dangerous products. Her writings, lectures, and appearances before Congressional committees, the FDA, and national and international media have raised the national consciousness on crucial women’s health issues. Ms. Shainwald has been recognized as a leader in women’s health litigation numerous times and in 2007 was the first woman recipient of New York Law School’s highest honor, the President’s Medal, for her “inspiring leadership, unswerving dedication, and superb and innovative legal skills on behalf of the women’s health movement.”