Justice Yvonne Lewis is currently the Moderator/President of the National Consortium on Racial and Ethnic Fairness in the Courts. She graduated from State University of New York, College at Geneseo with a Bachelor of Science in Education (Secondary Social Studies). She received her Juris Doctor from the University of Buffalo. She was elected to the Civil Court (Kings County) in 1986 - the first African-American female to sit in that Court. In 1991, Justice Lewis was elected to the Supreme Court and served for 24 years until her retirement in December 2015. While serving on the bench, Judge Lewis was actively involved in the Kings County Black History Month Committee sponsored events month long throughout the various Brooklyn courts. She has continually made efforts to insure the mentoring of youth, in and out of school, from elementary school through law school.
Justice Lewis is also a Commission member on the Board of the Franklin H. Williams Judicial Commission. She has served as past president of The Judicial Friends (an affiliate of the Judicial Council of the National Bar Association). Judge Lewis has also served on the National Conference of Black Lawyers, a member of The Metropolitan Black Bar Association (Board of Directors), Association of Black Women Attorneys, Advisory Committee of Judicial Ethics, National Lawyers Guild, National and State Associations of Women Judges (Board of Directors), the Brooklyn Women's Bar Association, Childhood Development Center (Board of Directors), Brownstoners of Bedford Stuyvesant, National Council of Negro Women and, a lifetime member of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.