Brenda Berkman, a lawyer, FDNY captain and artist, at the opening of her art exhibit at the Charles P. Sifton Gallery at the U.S. District Court on Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn on Wednesday, April 18.

Berkman filed a lawsuit in 1982 that resulted in the hiring of the first female firefighters by the FDNY. The presiding judge on her case was former Chief Judge Sifton, for whom the gallery is named. She rose to the rank of captain before retiring and pursuing her stone lithograph artwork.