Former New York City Bar Association Executive Director Named as President of the Mount Sinai Medical Legal Partnership
The Mount Sinai Medical Legal Partnership (MSMLP), which offers free legal services to vulnerable patients, has appointed Barbara Berger Opotowsky as President.
Ms. Opotowsky joins MSMLP after serving for 15 years as the Executive Director of the New York City Bar Association where she was responsible for the operation of the 24,000-member organization. Ms. Opotowsky was involved with access-to-justice issues at the Association through its sister organization, the City Bar Justice Center. Joining the Partnership will allow her to continue her work to increase access to justice for the most vulnerable patients in the Mount Sinai Health System.
Prior to the City Bar, Ms. Opotowsky was the President of the Better Business Bureau of Metropolitan New York, Assistant Commissioner of the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, and a lawyer in private practice.
“Barbara brings a wealth of legal experience and social justice advocacy that will lead the Mount Sinai Medical Legal Partnership in connecting patients with the legal help they need for holistic well-being,” said Beth Essig, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Mount Sinai Health System.
Mount Sinai Health System established the MSMLP a year ago to provide the most vulnerable of its patients with free legal services to prevent and remedy the social and environmental conditions that can negatively affect a patient’s overall well-being. MSMLP brings together lawyers and health care teams, implementing integrated approaches to holistically caring for Mount Sinai’s patients by giving patients legal help in the areas of housing, education, benefits, family law issues, wills, and immigration.
The Mount Sinai Medical Legal Partnership Board is co-chaired by Bettina Plevan, a partner at Proskauer Rose LLP, and Allison Charney, a partner at Foley & Lardner, LLP.
About the Mount Sinai Health System
Mount Sinai Health System is one of the nation’s leading integrated academic health systems and one of the largest in the New York metropolitan area. Its comprehensive system includes seven hospitals, more than 400 outpatient practices, over 600 research and clinical laboratories, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, and the Mount Sinai Phillips School of Nursing. Together, the Health System comprises approximately 48,000 employees, more than 9,000 physicians, and 8,600 nurses.
As a leading learning health system, Mount Sinai combines clinical expertise with scientific discovery to improve patient care while training the next generation of health care and biomedical leaders. The Health System provides care across every stage of life, from prenatal care through geriatrics, while advancing personalized medicine through artificial intelligence, data science, and biomedical research.
Mount Sinai is consistently recognized among the nation’s leading academic health systems for patient care, research, and education. The Mount Sinai Hospital is ranked No. 1 in New York by Newsweek® and No. 7 in the U.S. on the magazine’s 2026 World’s Best Hospitals list and No. 3 in the world in its World’s Best Smart Hospitals list. The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai ranks No. 9 among U.S. medical schools and No. 1 among freestanding medical schools for National Institutes of Health grant funding, reflecting the strength of its scientific enterprise and leadership in biomedical research.