All but one Queens judicial hopeful approved by city bar association
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The New York City Bar Association this week released its ratings of candidates running for judicial positions, including a number of whom are running for spots on the Queens Civil Court bench. Eagle file photo by Walter Karling
By Jacob Kaye
The New York City Bar Association this week released its ratings of judicial candidates throughout the five boroughs ahead of the upcoming November election.
All but one judicial candidate running for a spot on the bench in Queens got the bar association’s approval.
The NYCBA, which releases its ratings for judicial candidates ahead of each election where there is a race for the bench, either rates candidates as “approved” or “not approved.” The bar association does not share any additional information about why a candidate received the rating they did.
There are six judicial races taking place throughout Queens in November, in addition to a race for Queens district attorney.
Only Sharmela Bachu, an attorney running on the Republican party line for a countywide Civil Court seat, was “not approved” by the NYCBA in its newest ratings.
Evelyn Gong, a candidate running for the Civil Court seat in the 6th Municipal District – which includes parts of northern and central Queens – was also not approved by the bar association, however, she was given the rating over the summer ahead of her victory in the three-way Democratic primary race for the seat. Gong, who was backed by the Queens County Democratic Party, wasn’t the only candidate in the primary not approved by the bar association – it was the only race in the borough where not a single candidate was approved.
Gong’s not approved rating remains ahead of the general election – the bar association does not issue new ratings to candidates it evaluated ahead of their primary election.
The NYCBA, like all other bar associations that rate candidates, does not share the details of its reviews of each candidate or the specific criteria by which candidates are judged.
The bar association’s review process includes interviews with each candidate, interviews with judges the candidate has appeared before or with attorneys they’ve worked with or against and a review of a questionnaire submitted by each candidate.
The New York City Bar Association’s questionnaire, which can be found online, includes questions about a candidate’s potential conflicts of interest, their disciplinary history, their temperment, scholarly works and potential drug use, among others.
The city bar association keeps the responses to the questionnaires confidential.
Candidates who receive the bar associations’ approval are 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.
Countywide Civil Court
The race for the borough’s countywide Civil Court seat is between Democratic nominee Sandra Perez and Sharmela Bachu, the Republican nominee.
Perez won the Democratic primary for the party’s nomination in June, beating challenger Marianne Gonzalez by around 20,000 votes.
Perez, who was endorsed by the Queens County Democratic Party prior to her primary victory, was given an approved rating by the NYCBA earlier this year. The litigation attorney has been a practicing lawyer for around three decades.
Perez first got her start as an assistant district attorney in the Brooklyn district attorney’s office. After several years there, she transitioned over to private practice, representing clients in criminal defense, immigration cases, deportation cases and similar cases. She’s also worked on some personal injury and civil law cases.
Bachu, a CUNY Law School graduate, has also been a practicing attorney for nearly 30 years.
Bachu currently has a private practice and practices in immigration, insurance, personal injury and criminal defense law. She was rated not approved by the NYCBA.
Civil Court, 1st Municipal District
Attorney Michael Goldman is running unopposed for the vacancy in the Civil Court’s 1st Municipal District, which includes the western-most portion of Queens.
Upon his election, Goldman will become the first openly gay elected judge in the history of the borough. He was approved by the NYCBA this week.
It’s not Goldman’s first attempt at getting on the bench. He ran for a countywide Civil Court seat in 2021 but lost to now-Judge Soma Syed in the Democratic primary. Goldman, who had been endorsed by the Queens County Democratic Party in the race, lost to Syed by around 2,500 votes.
For most of his legal career, Goldman has worked as a court attorney. He currently works as a senior court attorney to Judge Jessica Earle-Gargan, who herself is on the ballot this election season.
Civil Court, 2nd Municipal District
Like Goldman, Sandra Munoz is running unopposed for a Civil Court seat in the 2nd Municipal District, which covers parts of northwest and central Queens.
Munoz, who was endorsed by the Queens County Democratic Party, was approved by the NYCBA this week.
Munoz is a practicing attorney who works in family and matrimonial law. She was a longtime member of the borough’s 18-B panel, or a panel of attorneys who are assigned to work with indigent or children clients.
Munoz is also a former president of the Latino Lawyers Association of Queens.
Civil Court, 4th Municipal District
Delsia Marshall is running unopposed for the Civil Court seat in the 4th Municipal District, which covers parts of South, Central and Eastern Queens.
Marshall, who was approved by the city bar association, is a private attorney who primarily handles personal injury cases with Shafer Partners, where she’s worked since 2017.
Marshall, who received her law degree from the New York University School of Law, is the past president of the Allen Lawyers’ Guild, a church ministry that sponsors free legal seminars.
Civil Court, 6th Municipal District
Running in the Civil Court’s 6th Municipal District is Republican nominee and perennial judicial candidate William Shanahan and Gong, the Democratic nominee who was previously not approved by the NYCBA.
The bar association gave Shanahan an approved rating this week.
As one of two Civil Court races in Queens between a Republican and Democrat, the race for the 6th Municipal District could be the most contested – in a borough where there are far more Democratic voters than Republicans, Democrats overwhelmingly win judicial races.
However, the district includes neighborhoods like Whitestone, Bayside and Bay Terrace, which have voted Republicans into office in recent years.
Shanahan, a graduate of St. John’s University School of Law, has been a practicing attorney for around three decades. He began his career working as an assistant district attorney in the Nassau County district attorney’s office. He eventually joined a private firm to practice as a civil litigator before founding his own firm, representing indigent clients and working on general litigation cases.
Gong, who is also a graduate of St. John’s University School of Law, grew up in Northwest Queens, spending time in both Flushing and Fresh Meadows. She has spent the past several years running a solo law practice based in the borough, working with nonprofit, small business and other clients, with a focus on nonprofit, business and election law.
Supreme Court
Running on the Democratic party line in the race for the five vacancies on the Queens Supreme Court bench are Judges Cassandra Johnson, Karen Lin, Peter Kelly, Scott Dunn and Jessica Earle-Gargan.
Gary Muraca is running on the GOP’s line – as is Dunn, who was endorsed by both parties.
Unlike Civil Court judicial candidates, candidates for Supreme Court do not run in a primary election. Instead, they are selected by a party’s judicial convention to run on that party’s ballot line.
Johnson, Lin, Kelly, Dunn and Earle-Gargan were selected by the Queens County Democratic Party in August. The Queens County Republican Party selected Muraca and Dunn to run on their party’s line several days later.
Every candidate running for a spot on the Supreme Court was approved by the New York City Bar Association.
Johnson was first elected to serve as a judge in Civil Court in 2021. The St. John’s School of Law graduate and former court attorney, law clerk and mediator, is a Queens native. Should she win her election, Johnson will become the first Haitian American woman to be elected to a State Supreme Court.
Lin was elected to the Civil Court bench just last year. The Queens-raised former Housing Court judge and longtime court employee, received the backing of a number of the borough’s elected officials during her bid for Civil Court in 2022. Lin, who is currently one of only a handful of Asian American judges on the bench in Queens, will become the first East Asian American woman elected to the Queens Supreme Court should she win her race in November.
Earle-Gargan was first elected to Civil Court in 2020. Though she was initially assigned to serve as a jurist in Brooklyn, she was soon moved back to the borough in which she was elected. She currently serves in Queens Criminal Court and oversees the borough’s Domestic Violence Part.
Dunn, a Rockaway native, was first appointed to the bench in 2017 by then-Mayor Bill de Blasio. Eventually making his way to Criminal Court, Dunn oversaw a number of high-profile cases in Queens, including one involving Grammy-winning musician Cardi B.
Kelly currently serves as the county’s Surrogate Court judge. He began his legal career in 1984 as an associate law clerk, eventually being elevated to principal law clerk and working as a referee in Queens County Surrogate Court in 1992. He was elected to Civil Court in 1999 and later to Supreme Court in 2003. In 2011, he became a judge in Surrogate’s Court – his term is set to expire next year.
Muraca is an attorney who has been practicing law in both the five boroughs and Long Beach since 1983. He’s a graduate of CUNY Law School.
Here’s how the NYCBA ranked judicial candidates running in the four other boroughs:
New York County
Civil Court, Countywide
Dana Marie Catanzaro – Approved
Civil Court, 3rd Municipal District
Andrea Krugman – Approved
Civil Court, 6th Municipal District
Anna Mikhaleva – Approved
Supreme Court, 1st Judicial District
Phaedra F. Perry – Approved
Lyle E. Frank – Approved
Leslie A. Stroth – Approved
Bronx County
Civil Court, 1st Municipal District
Carol Elaine Malcolm – Approved
Edit Shkreli – Approved
Civil Court, Countywide
Joaquin E. Orellana – Not Approved
Supreme Court, 12th Judicial District
Michael A. Frishman – Approved
Sharon A.M. Aarons – Approved
John A. Howard-Algarin – Approved
Kings County
Surrogate’s Court
Bernard J. Graham – Approved
Civil Court, Countywide
Betsey Jean-Jacques – Approved
Marva C. Brown – Approved
Monique J. Holaman – Approved
Civil Court, 1st Municipal District
Rena Malik – Approved
Civil Court, 2nd Municipal District
Lola Waterman – Approved
Babatunde Akowe – Not Approved
Civil Court, 3rd Municipal District
Javier Ortiz – Approved
Supreme Court, 2nd Judicial District
Rachel Freier – Approved
Sharon A. Bourne-Clarke – Approved
Saul Stein – Approved
Joanne Quinones – Approved
Heela Capell – Approved
Caroline Piela Cohen – Approved
Timothy John Peterson – Not Approved
Richmond County
Civil Court, 2nd Municipal District
Michael J. Pinto – Approved
