State court leaders scrap court simplification plan
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Chief Judge Rowan Wilson will not pursue his predecessor’s court restructuring plan, which was opposed by a number of judges’ associations and would have required the passage of a constitutional amendment. AP file photo by Hans Pennink
By Jacob Kaye
Former Chief Judge Janet DiFiore’s sweeping but controversial plan to restructure, or “simplify,” the state’s court system is no more, the Eagle has learned.
Chief Judge Rowan Wilson, who was appointed to serve as the state’s top judge in April after DiFiore abruptly resigned from the post in August of last year, will not push state lawmakers to codify the extensive changes to the structure of New York’s Unified Court System originally proposed by the former chief judge.
The court’s proposed reorganization, which caused one of several rifts between DiFiore and the state’s elected judges, is not a priority for the court system’s new leadership, court officials say.
The State Senator who previously championed the changes by proposing a constitutional amendment to create the new structure also does not plan on reintroducing the failed bill in the near future.
Despite what was, at times, a bitter fight to bring New York’s sprawling court organization into a more concentrated structure, New York’s court system, which has largely been unchanged for decades, will likely remain the same for the foreseeable future.
“Our priority is to work with the governor, legislature and local governments to improve the delivery of justice by our court system within the current structure,” Lucian Chalfen, the Office of Court Administration’s spokesperson, told the Eagle. “Although some improvements may require constitutional amendments, we are not interested in pursuing a broad restructuring of the courts.”
“As a result of many years of essentially flat budgets and a chronic failure to maintain physical plants and modernize court infrastructure, there are great opportunities to improve within the existing framework, such as our ongoing focus in adding resources to Family Court,” he added.
A spokesperson for State Senator and Judiciary Committee Chair Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who carried the court consolidation bill in the past, said that the senator is not planning to introduce a constitutional amendment similar to the one he introduced on behalf of DiFiore in 2022.
Hoylman-Sigal did not introduce a court consolidation bill during the 2023 legislative session, which began several months after DiFiore had already resigned from office.
It was the divisiveness caused by the plan and the general difficulty of changing the structure of the courts – which would have required a constitutional amendment – that prompted Wilson and Chief Administrative Judge Joseph Zayas to drop the court consolidation proposal altogether, according to court officials.
Though the status of the court’s restructuring has not been previously reported or officially confirmed by the Office of Court Administration, Wilson has not been shy about sharing his opinion about his predecessor's plan.
While speaking to a group of New York State Supreme Court justices earlier this summer, the chief judge said that consolidation and simplification were not “in [his] vocabulary,” according to a Queens judge who was in attendance.
His comments were met with a standing ovation.
DiFiore’s court restructuring plan faced major pushback from a number of judges’ associations, many of which had opposed previous restructuring attempts made by chief judges in the past.
Former Chief Judge Janet DiFiore’s plan to reorganize the state’s court system will not move forward under the court’s new leadership. AP file photo by Hans Pennink
Several of the associations, including the Associations of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the State and City of New York, accused DiFiore and the OCA of attempting a power grab through its court simplification plan. The plan would have created a new position called the “chief administrator of the courts,” which the associations claimed would allow for power to be funneled into a single appointed individual within the court system.
Under the proposed restructuring, the Supreme, County, Family, and Surrogate’s courts, as well as the Court of Claims, would come together as one Supreme Court with six divisions, including Family, Probate, Criminal, State Claims, Commercial and General.
There would additionally be a Municipal Court, which would absorb New York City’s Civil and Criminal Courts. Town and village courts would have remained the same had the plan gone forward.
Also tied into the court system rehaul was a provision that would require considerations for diversity in all judicial appointments.
The proposal would have also created additional opportunities for non-elected judges to be given Supreme Court judgeships, an element of the plan largely opposed by the state’s Supreme Court justices. Under the proposal, Court of Claims judges, and all New York City Family, Civil and Criminal Court judges who had been serving as acting Supreme Court justices for at least six months would have automatically been named Supreme Court justices.
DiFiore also proposed making a fifth judicial department and additional Appellate Divisions.
The proposal also would have repealed the mandatory retirement age for judges.
DiFiore and former Chief Administrative Judge Lawrence Marks said that the plan would enhance access to justice for low-income, non-white litigants. They also say it would save millions in legal costs, make it easier for judges to advance through the court system and make it easier to move judges from county to county to support court needs.
But the plan saw little support from those working in the courts and sitting on the bench, who felt that the restructuring was presented to them as a number of DiFiore’s policies had been presented to them in the past – a top down edict that lacked input from the rank-and-file judges and staff.
“They were doing things without the consultation, without the knowledge of what we actually do,” said Queens Supreme Court Justice Carmen Velasquez, who serves as the president of the Queens Supreme Court Justices' Association. “The people who were organizing the court system were not taking into account what we do, and that was wrong.”
Velasquez said that she’s felt that approach has recently changed under the leadership of Wilson, Zayas and Deputy Chief Administrative Judge Norman St. George.
“Those are people who have hands-on experience,” Velasquez said, adding that she believes judges’ opinions on policy changes are now more frequently considered than they were during DiFiore’s tenure.
But the plan wasn’t opposed by all – the New York State Bar Association, The Legal Aid Society and other legal groups supported the effort to consolidate the court system. In 2022, T. Andrew Brown, who was at the time serving as the president of the NYSBA, encouraged others to support the restructure, calling the current court system “exceedingly inefficient, inordinately complex, and extremely costly.”
DiFiore was not the only chief judge to attempt to consolidate and restructure the state’s court system. So too did former Chief Judges Jonathan Lippman and Judith Kaye, both of whom saw their efforts fail.
“The likelihood of success of any [restructuring] plan is very remote,” Jeremy Weinstein, the former administrative judge of Queens Supreme Court, Civil Term, told the Eagle.
Weinstein added that while DiFiore’s court consolidation plan may have been too extreme of an overhaul, changes to the state’s court system could be made to make the dispensing of justice more efficient.
“Some slight modifications could result in some cost savings and eliminate some confusion,” he said. “But it'd be modest in return and if that's going to make things difficult with the judiciary in general, I’m not quite sure it's really worth pursuing.”
