Senate Backs 21 New Judges in Family Court

'Desperately Needed'

Judge Lippman said in a statement Friday that the new judgeships are “desperately needed” as Family Court filings continue to increase. While the Legislature has created mandates that have increased the workload at Family Court, such as semi-annual permanency hearings for children in foster care or issuing orders of protection, “no corresponding action has been taken to ensure that the number of Family Court judges remains sufficient to meet the greater case loads and complexity of proceedings that have resulted,” the statement said.

Obstacles Remain

Democrats are in a majority in the Senate for the first time since the mid-1970s. While the Senate overwhelmingly approved the bill by a 54-5 vote, and the Assembly is expected to follow suit when it is next in session, the judgeships are not a certainty. Governor David A. Paterson has been issuing warning for more than a year about the state's shaky financial position and has vetoed tens of millions of dollars in spending from bills sent by the Legislature.

(A spokeswoman for the governor did not respond to requests for comment. In general, the office declines to comment on legislation before it reaches Mr. Paterson's desk.)

According to court system estimates, it costs about $1 million to establish a new Family Court judgeship in the first year. Costs drop somewhat in subsequent years because office furniture and other purchases made that first year do not have to be repeated.

Increased Workloads Press Issue

The last time new Family Court judgeships were created in New York City was between July 1, 1990, and April 1, 1991, when the number increased from 44 to 47. Overall, the legislation would boost the number of Family Court judges statewide by 14% to 174 from 153. Between 2005 and 2008, the Unified Court System said filings in Family Court increased from 665,970 to 728,000, or by about 8%.

Victor A. Kovner, of the Fund for Modern Courts, said the numbers of filings do not begin to tell the whole story.”There is a crisis in the Family Court,” Mr. Kovner, of Davis Wright Tremaine, said in an interview the day after the Senate's passage of the bill. “The needs of the Family Court are overwhelming and litigants in Family Court are simply not being served with any remote degree of efficiency given the pressure on judges. This [legislation] is a modest but important step forward. It will relieve pressure that is simply intolerable.”

Sponsors React

The bill was sponsored by Sen. John L. Sampson, D-Brooklyn, who chairs the Senate's Judiciary Committee. He said in a statement that adding more judges would reduce caseloads and speed the resolution of cases.

The Assembly sponsor, Judiciary Committee Chairwoman Helene Weinstein, D-Brooklyn, said she welcomed passage of an expansion of the Family Court bench. A Weinstein bill last year would have added 39 new judgeships statewide, 14 in New York City. It did not pass either chamber. Weinstein said the figure of 39 judges was based on assessments by the court system. But she said the number had been pared down in recognition of the state's fiscal crisis.

“The population served by the Family Court is not one that has many lobbyists,” Ms. Weinstein said the day after the Senate's passage of the bill, noting that the court serves many lower-income individuals and children.

She said she would seek to have the new bill put before the Assembly when it is next in session. Gov. Paterson has asked for each chamber to return to Albany to deal with a budget gap in the current fiscal year he now warns has climbed past $2 billion.No date has been set for the Assembly's return.

Weinstein said it will likely be harder to convince Gov. Paterson to sign the legislation than to get it through the Democrat-dominated Assembly. “He has vetoed bills that had much smaller fiscal implications” since becoming governor, Weinstein said. “Clearly, the state is in a financial crisis of not having dollars just sitting there waiting. But I have never believed the lack of dollars should dictate us not taking the right action. You can't tell a child that they have to linger in foster care because we don't have a judge to attend a hearing. And what about an abused child?”

Joel Stashenko is the Albany Bureau Chief for the New York Law Journal, a sister publication of this newsletter in which this article first appeared.

Seven new Family Court judges in New York City would be among 21 judgeships created in Family Courts statewide under legislation approved by the state Senate. The additional judgeships for New York City would be the first in the city's Family Court since 1991 and the most significant increase statewide on the Family Court bench in at least three decades.

The addition of seven judges would bring the total to 54 in New York City. The bill (A8957/S5968) also would add one new judgeship in Family Courts in each of 14 counties outside the city, including Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester. All the new posts would be created starting Jan. 1, 2010.

Passage of the bill on Sept. 10 by the Senate, which had refused to act on several bills to increase Family Court judgeships sent to it by the Assembly since 1999, also represented a lobbying victory for Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman. He has made increasing Family Court judgeships one of the top legislative priorities of his first year as chief judge. However, the number is less than the 39 new positions former Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye said two years ago the Unified Court System would seek.

'Desperately Needed'

Judge Lippman said in a statement Friday that the new judgeships are “desperately needed” as Family Court filings continue to increase. While the Legislature has created mandates that have increased the workload at Family Court, such as semi-annual permanency hearings for children in foster care or issuing orders of protection, “no corresponding action has been taken to ensure that the number of Family Court judges remains sufficient to meet the greater case loads and complexity of proceedings that have resulted,” the statement said.

Obstacles Remain

Democrats are in a majority in the Senate for the first time since the mid-1970s. While the Senate overwhelmingly approved the bill by a 54-5 vote, and the Assembly is expected to follow suit when it is next in session, the judgeships are not a certainty. Governor David A. Paterson has been issuing warning for more than a year about the state's shaky financial position and has vetoed tens of millions of dollars in spending from bills sent by the Legislature.

(A spokeswoman for the governor did not respond to requests for comment. In general, the office declines to comment on legislation before it reaches Mr. Paterson's desk.)

According to court system estimates, it costs about $1 million to establish a new Family Court judgeship in the first year. Costs drop somewhat in subsequent years because office furniture and other purchases made that first year do not have to be repeated.

Increased Workloads Press Issue

The last time new Family Court judgeships were created in New York City was between July 1, 1990, and April 1, 1991, when the number increased from 44 to 47. Overall, the legislation would boost the number of Family Court judges statewide by 14% to 174 from 153. Between 2005 and 2008, the Unified Court System said filings in Family Court increased from 665,970 to 728,000, or by about 8%.

Victor A. Kovner, of the Fund for Modern Courts, said the numbers of filings do not begin to tell the whole story.”There is a crisis in the Family Court,” Mr. Kovner, of Davis Wright Tremaine, said in an interview the day after the Senate's passage of the bill. “The needs of the Family Court are overwhelming and litigants in Family Court are simply not being served with any remote degree of efficiency given the pressure on judges. This [legislation] is a modest but important step forward. It will relieve pressure that is simply intolerable.”

Sponsors React

The bill was sponsored by Sen. John L. Sampson, D-Brooklyn, who chairs the Senate's Judiciary Committee. He said in a statement that adding more judges would reduce caseloads and speed the resolution of cases.

The Assembly sponsor, Judiciary Committee Chairwoman Helene Weinstein, D-Brooklyn, said she welcomed passage of an expansion of the Family Court bench. A Weinstein bill last year would have added 39 new judgeships statewide, 14 in New York City. It did not pass either chamber. Weinstein said the figure of 39 judges was based on assessments by the court system. But she said the number had been pared down in recognition of the state's fiscal crisis.

“The population served by the Family Court is not one that has many lobbyists,” Ms. Weinstein said the day after the Senate's passage of the bill, noting that the court serves many lower-income individuals and children.

She said she would seek to have the new bill put before the Assembly when it is next in session. Gov. Paterson has asked for each chamber to return to Albany to deal with a budget gap in the current fiscal year he now warns has climbed past $2 billion.No date has been set for the Assembly's return.

Weinstein said it will likely be harder to convince Gov. Paterson to sign the legislation than to get it through the Democrat-dominated Assembly. “He has vetoed bills that had much smaller fiscal implications” since becoming governor, Weinstein said. “Clearly, the state is in a financial crisis of not having dollars just sitting there waiting. But I have never believed the lack of dollars should dictate us not taking the right action. You can't tell a child that they have to linger in foster care because we don't have a judge to attend a hearing. And what about an abused child?”

Joel Stashenko is the Albany Bureau Chief for the New York Law Journal, a sister publication of this newsletter in which this article first appeared.