Anne E. Joynt ’05

It was as a third-grader, visiting Harvard on vacation with her family, that Anne Joynt decided to go to law school. Her mother, an elementary school principal, and her father, a professor at UB School of Dental Medicine, were supportive. She was an English and Spanish major at SUNY Geneseo, then chose UB law because “it felt like home.”  She liked Professor Ken Joyce and worked for Professor Isabel Marcus, as her student researcher, and for Professor Judy Scales-Trent. She became interested in human rights law, and believes the personal injury work she does today is like human rights, because it gives a voice to the voiceless in some situations. It lines up with her values, although differently.

In law school, putting together arguments and writing briefs was something that appealed to Joynt. It taught her how to develop a record and what’s important. There was a good mix of theoretical and practical classes. The reading, research and writing professors were particularly excellent at preparing students for what would be expected. She felt well equipped to enter practice. Research and Writing Professor Jeffrey Malkin helped her land her longtime job at Lipsitz, Ponterio & Comerford.

Joynt feels privileged to work with great people. She has had mentors since she entered practice and feels the support staff is outstanding. She said you don’t go to see a personal injury attorney unless something has happened, and she enjoys being able to build significant relationships and help her clients.

She was eager to engage with her alma mater and has held positions ranging from the Law Alumni Association’s GOLD (Graduates of the Last Decade) Group, to the Law Alumni Association Board of Directors, to the Dean’s Advisory Council. As president of the GOLD Group board, Joynt became involved with law students and new graduates. “The law school does such a great job of cultivating attorneys and supporting them once they’re out,” she said. She likes being a mentor for UB law students and does so regularly.

As UBLAA president during Covid, she was proud of how the board pivoted in the early days of the pandemic. She came in as president in 2020-2021 and had to figure out how to engage meaningfully with alumni virtually, including the Jaeckle Award and the Alumni Dinner. The board established the Social Justice and Racial Equity Fund when Joynt was president, in response to ongoing tensions and racially motivated violence throughout the country.

Her closest friends come from the Women’s Bar Association, and she believes it’s important for women attorneys to have a sense of community, take positions on legislative matters of import and lobby to those ends for women and children.

She has also been deeply involved with the Minority Bar Foundation, the Bar Association of Erie County and the Western New York Women’s Foundation. She has never been involved with an organization about which she did not care deeply—and, she said, that makes it so much easier to donate the time and resources to make those commitments work.