Local bar associations release Queens judicial candidate ratings
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The Queens County Bar Association rated Thomas Oliva and Karen Lin, two of the four judicial candidates running in the race, as “approved,” for a spot on the Civil Court bench. File photo by Walter Karling
By Jacob Kaye
The New York City Bar and Queens County Bar Associations released the findings of their evaluations of judicial candidates running throughout the city last week, a day before the start of early voting and a little more than a week before primary election day.
In Queens, there were four candidates to evaluate – all four are on the ballot for two vacancies on the Queens County Civil Court bench.
Both the City Bar and the Queens County Bar gave candidates Thomas Oliva and Karen Lin an “approval” rating. The two are also the only candidates in the race to have received the support and endorsement of the Queens County Democratic Party.
The NYCBA gave candidates Devian Daneils and Maria T. Gonzalez a “not approved” rating. Gonzalez also received a “not approved” rating from the QCBA. The Queens organization did not issue a rating to Daniels.
Lin is a former Bronx Housing Court judge who currently works in Manhattan Surrogate’s Court. If elected, she would become one of only a handful of Asian Americans on the Queens Civil Court bench. Asian Americans are among the least represented racial or ethnic groups in the Queens judiciary.
Oliva is a practicing attorney and the current president of the Latino Lawyers Association of Queens County. He attended Hofstra Law School and served on the board of Hofstra Law School’s Latino Law Student Association. He previously served as a prosecutor in the Bronx district attorney's office.
Daniels, a CUNY Law School graduate, ran for a spot on the Civil Court bench last year, losing out to now-Judge Cassandra Johnson – Johnson beat out Daniels with over 80 percent of the vote.
In the year since ending her previous campaign and starting a new one, Daniels has lent her legal expertise to a free law clinic set up by City Council Speaker and Queens Councilmember Adrienne Adams, she told the Eagle last week.
Gonzalez is a practicing attorney based in Jackson Heights who has the backing of former elected official Hiram Monserrate, who was expelled from the State Senate after he was convicted of assault against his-then girlfriend and who was also later jailed on corruption charges.
Candidates who receive the bar associations’ approval were found to have “affirmatively demonstrated qualifications necessary for the performance of the duties of the position for which they are being considered,” according to the NYCBA. Non-approved candidates either did not meet that threshold or did not participate in the bar association’s vetting process.
The QCBA and NYCBA conduct a portion of the evaluation process together – the evaluations are conducted by each bar associations’ Judiciary Committee, made up of attorneys.
“They have courtroom experience, they’re able to observe and determine judicial acumen, tone and temperament and the members of the committee that are participants in that judicial inquiry are in the best position to make the judgment,” QCBA Past President Frank Bruno told the Eagle in 2021.
The QCBA’s Judicial Committee requires that candidates first fill out an application, which Les Nizen, the chair of the committee, said is “very detailed and lengthy,” during a 2021 interview.
Several members of the committee then review each candidate’s written work, interview attorneys who have worked in the past with the candidate and, when possible, observe the candidate in a courtroom setting.
The committee members then create a report on each candidate and submit the report to the rest of the committee, which includes members of the Queens and New York City Bar Associations. The candidates are then interviewed before the full committee.
Following the interview, the QCBA and NYCBA committees vote separately. The QCBA committee votes by secret ballot.
Nizen said the ratings have multiple benefits – to voters, candidates and attorneys in the bar associations.
“If I'm a candidate, and I'm being reviewed, my peers are the people that know me or have appeared before me and I would like to know what their perception of me is,” Nizen said. “If I think I'm a very kind and sweet jurist, but the people that appear before me think I'm an SOB, I would like to know that so that I can make amends and change.”
It’s also beneficial to the attorneys who review candidates, Nizen said, because it gives them some agency in the process and allows them to arm their colleagues with information that they can take to the voting booth. For voters, it’s one of the only vetting tools they can utilize to inform their vote – judicial candidates, unlike candidates for political office, are unable to campaign on specific issues and can only campaign on their previous experience with the legal system.
Civil Court judges are elected to serve for 10-year terms in the court that hears cases that deal with $50,000 disputes or less. While they may be elected to serve in their county’s Civil Court, the Office of Court Administration can shift the judges to Family Court or the city’s Criminal Court, which often happens.
Civil Court judges are also at the top of the list when the Democratic or Republican Party considers nominations to the New York State Supreme Court – Supreme Court candidates do not compete in a primary and are selected by the parties’ judicial delegates.
While there are two vacancies on the Queens Civil Court this election cycle, there will only be one place on the ballot to select the judges. Voters will check off two of the four candidates when casting their vote.
Critics say that because Lin and Daniels petitioned for one vacancy, and Oliva and Gonzalez petitioned for the other, there should be two separate ballot lines for the two separate vacancies.
Should one of the candidates run unopposed, they would not appear on the ballot and head straight to the general election in November.
The system operates that way under the assigned vacancy law.
The law was created to protect incumbent judges and party nominees from being knocked off by insurgent candidates, says Howard Graubard, an election attorney. It also allows for judges to do less campaigning.
“At the time, there was a gentleperson’s agreement among political leadership to leave sitting judges alone, unless they're total idiots or something,” Graubard said.
Party leaders would negotiate with other candidates to ensure that they didn’t run for the same vacancy as a sitting judge or party nominee, effectively securing a spot on the bench for the party’s preferred candidate.
“The idea was to allow those arrangements to be made, where people would be held harmless, and we just played over open seats,” Graubard said.
But without the deal making, all four candidates are pitted against each other on the ballot. The Queens County Democratic Party has had difficulties in recent years getting its preferred candidates elected.
Party preferred candidates lost races for Civil Court, both in the primary and general election, in 2019, 2020 and in 2021.
Early voting began on Saturday, June 18 and will run through Sunday, June 26. Election day is on June 28.
Head to vote.nyc for more information on early voting locations and polling hours, and for more information on the election process.
