Two bar associations come out against court changes

The Puerto Rican Bar Association and the Latino Lawyers Association of Queens said last week that their opposed to Chief Judge Janet DiFiore’s (center) plan to restructure the state’s court system.  AP file photo by Mike Groll

By Jacob Kaye

Breaking from the New York City and State Bar Associations, several bar associations representing Latino and Hispanic legal professionals have begun to voice their opposition to court leaders’ plan to reform the state’s decades-old court structure.

Last week, the Puerto Rican Bar Association issued its stance on the court restructuring backed by Chief Judge Janet DiFiore, calling it “flawed.”

The Latino Lawyers Association of Queens County also held an emergency meeting last week and voted to oppose the plan.

“The proposed merger is flawed for numerous reasons but most notably, it disparately impacts the rights of minorities and communities of color to elect judicial candidates to the bench, imperiling diversity at its most fundamental level,” the Puerto Rican Bar Association said in a statement.

Though the method by which judges take the bench – a mixture of elections and appointments – would not change under the chief judge’s proposal, those in opposition, including the Puerto Rican Bar Association, argue that the changes would concentrate power with the Office of Court Administration and not with voters.

“Under the proposed legislation, this constitutional amendment would eviscerate that diversity even further by taking away the right of the people to elect their judicial candidates and instead put it in the hands of the OCA to appoint judges to those seats,” the association said.

Under the restructuring, New York’s massive court system would effectively be reduced to two courts – Supreme Courts and, a newly created, Municipal Court.

The Supreme, County, Family, Surrogate’s courts and the Court of Claims would come together as one Supreme Court with six divisions, including Family, Probate, Criminal, State Claims, Commercial and General.

The Municipal Court would absorb New York City’s Civil and Criminal Courts. Town and village courts would not change.

Though similar restructurings have been proposed in the past, including one by DiFiore in 2019, the current plan is being pursued as a constitutional amendment.

As such, the plan would need to be voted on by the state legislature twice over the course of two years and get the go ahead from voters as a ballot measure.

The restructuring was introduced in the legislature as Senate bill S8424.

Court leaders say the restructuring would allow for additional justices on the Supreme Court, require considerations for diversity in all judicial appointments and allow for the creation of new judicial departments and Appellate Divisions. It would also repeal the mandatory retirement age – 76 – for judges.

Court officials claim the plan would enhance access to justice for low-income, non-white litigants. They also say it would save millions in legal costs, ease the advancement of judges and make it easier to move judges from county to county to support court needs.

Lucian Chalfen, OCA’s spokesperson, dismissed the bar association’s worries and touted the plan’s promise in diversifying the courts in a statement to the Eagle Monday.

“They are just repeating the talking points of certain vested interests who do not want change, as it would imperial their monopoly on certain court appointments,” Chalfen said.

“Any kind of broadening of opportunity increases interest in different courts, which would help diversity,” Chalfen added. “OCA already appoints many, many acting Supreme Court justices, particularly in New York City, so to say that this is some new power grab is total fiction.”

In Queens County, diversity among appointed justices and elected justices is effectively the same.

The same isn’t true of New York City as a whole, where 51 percent of elected judges are white, 23 percent are Black, 18 percent are Latino, 4 percent are Asian and 1 percent are Native American. Around 64 of appointed judges in New York City are white, 17 percent are Latino, 15 percent are Black and 18 percent are Asian, according to OCA data.

In addition to their belief that it wouldn’t boost the number of judges of color within the court system, leadership of the Latino Lawyers Association of Queens County said that by increasing OCA’s ability to move elected judges from county to county, the restructuring plan may end up disenfranchising voters.

The present number of Latino’s sitting on the bench in Queens County are low enough. Why would we want them shipped out?” the association said. “There are no upstate Latino judges to bolster those numbers here. Why would we want OCA to have the unbridled power to shift our Queens County numbers that we are tirelessly working to improve? The people of Queens are constitutionally entitled to have the judges they elect from the Queens community to remain before them here in Queens.”

The Latino Lawyers Association of Queens County and the Puerto Rican Bar Association are not the only legal communities to voice concerns about DiFiore’s plans – the proposal has gotten push back from the Association of the Supreme Court Justices of the State and City of New York and nearly a dozen unions representing court employees.

But the plan has also received the backing of a number of legal groups throughout the state, including the New York City and State Bar Associations.

“Chief Judge Janet DiFiore’s bold plan to merge and modernize New York’s courts has

the unequivocal support of the New York State Bar Association,” T. Andrew Brown, the president of the bar association said in a March statement. “For more than four decades, the New York Bar has advocated for simplifying New York’s convoluted system of courts, which are exceedingly inefficient, inordinately complex, and extremely costly.”

We cannot delay this vitally important initiative if we want to achieve our most cherished ideals – securing public confidence in our judicial system and ensuring access to justice,” he added.

The Queens County Bar Association has yet to formally vote on its stance on the proposed restructuring.