Wendy Li not approved by QCBA in Surrogate’s Court race
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Civil Court Judge Wendy Li was found to be “not approved” by the Queens County Bar Association in her bid for Surrogate’s Court judge. Queens County Supreme Court Justice Cassandra Johnson, Li’s opponent, was found to be “qualified.” Photos via campaigns
By Jacob Kaye
The Queens County Bar Association on Wednesday said that one of the two Democratic candidates running for an impending vacancy on the coveted Surrogate’s Court bench was “not approved” for the seat.
Wendy Li, a judge who currently sits in Manhattan Civil Court, received this week the lowest rating from the local bar association, which evaluates judicial candidates running in the World’s Borough each election cycle.
Queens Supreme Court Justice Cassandra Johnson, the only other Democratic candidate in the race, was found to be “qualified” for the seat by the QCBA. Johnson was endorsed in the race by the Queens County Democratic Party, whose preferred candidates have sat on the Surrogate’s Court bench for decades.
Li, who has served as a judge in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens over the past six years, is considered to be the insurgent candidate in the race for one of the most prized judicial positions in the borough.
The judge blasted the QCBA’s rating on Wednesday.
“I reject the Bar Association’s rating as a miscarriage of justice against a previously approved Civil Court judge with a superlative record of fairness, ethics and efficiency,” Li said in a statement. “My educational and professional record, intellectual ability, work ethic, and fitness to be the next Queens Surrogate’s Court judge speak far louder than a predetermined political decision in furtherance of the Queens political machine’s influence.”
In a statement, Johnson celebrated the rating given to her by the QCBA.
"I am thrilled to have the approval of the Queens County Bar Association," Johnson said. "Validation by my peers and professional practitioners is always heartening, as it serves to remind me of my obligation to not only know the law, but administer it effectively as a jurist.”
“I am thankful to QCBA for recognizing my work as a judge, my qualifications and experience, and hope to continue upholding the highest standards of integrity befitting of a Queens public servant,” she added.
Johnson’s rise through the ranks of Queens’ judiciary has been swift.
Supported by the Queens County Democratic Party, she was first elected to Civil Court in 2021.
In 2023, she was again selected by the Queens County Democratic Party to run on the party’s line for one of several Supreme Court vacancies in the borough. She won her election, becoming the first Haitian American woman to be elected to a State Supreme Court.
A Queens native, Johnson attended St. John’s University in Queens for both her undergraduate and law degrees. After graduating, she began working as an attorney with a private firm in Brooklyn for a year before she entered the city’s Human Resources Administration as a staff attorney.
She spent the intervening years as a law secretary, law clerk and briefly as a senior court attorney for the Law Department.
Johnson also currently serves as the corresponding secretary for both the Queens County Women's Bar Association and the Macon B. Allen Black Bar Association.
Her opponent and former judicial colleague, Li, was first elected as a judge in 2018, winning a race for Manhattan’s Civil Court.
Since then, she’s sat in Kings County Criminal Court, Queens Civil Court and Manhattan Civil Court.
Li, who grew up in China, spent a bulk of her career working as a private attorney. Li also served as a board director and secretary of the Asian American Judges Association of New York from 2020 to 2023.
Li’s bid against Johnson is not the first time she’s run against what she calls an “establishment” candidate. During her first bid for the bench in Manhattan, Li beat out Robert Rosenthal, who had the backing of nearly every elected Democratic official in the area.
But while Li had trouble convincing the QCBA she was qualified for the job, she hasn’t run into the same issues with donors.
Throughout the race, Li has brought in a little over $400,000, according to the state’s Board of Elections, vastly outraising Johnson who has brought in around half as much, with $217,000 in contributions.
Many of Li’s largest contributions – though not all – have come from donors outside of the borough, and some have come from outside of the city and state.
The election is arguably the most critical judicial race for the Queens County Democratic Party. Candidates the county party support have essentially been the only ones to run the court for decades.
Surrogate’s Court in New York City is often referred to as one of the last vestiges of “political patronage” in the city.
The court primarily deals with guardianships, estates and wills, which means that large amounts of money are often up for question in the court.
Though the number of Surrogate’s Court judges in each borough varies, in Queens, there is only one.
Currently, the court is overseen by Peter Kelly. Last year, Kelly ran for and won a spot on the Queens County Supreme Court bench, after serving 13 years of his 14-year term on the Surrogate Court bench. Despite his election, he was assigned to complete the final year of his term and serve as the acting Surrogate’s Court judge until the end of 2024.
Civil Court ratings
In addition to rating Surrogate’s Court judicial candidates, the QCBA also rated candidates running for the borough’s Civil Court, where there are currently two vacancies.
Queens County Democratic Party-backed candidates Amish Doshi, an attorney practicing bankruptcy, business law, real estate law and estate planning, and Sharifa Milena Nasser-Cuellar, a private attorney operating her own firm in Forest Hills, were both given the bar association’s qualified rating.
Antonio Alfonso, the political director of the Queens County Democratic Party, said the QCBA’s ratings of the party's candidates “recognizes what we already knew – these candidates are exceptionally qualified, trustworthy, and deeply committed to justice.”
“These candidates are uniquely qualified and ready to serve the community with distinction,” Alfonso said.
Also found qualified was Glenda Hernandez, who currently works as a court attorney but previously worked as a supervising attorney at the Urban Justice Center and as a private attorney representing tenants in Housing Court cases.
Hernandez is one of several judicial candidates to be running with the support of Hiram Monserrate, the former lawmaker who was booted from the State Senate after being convicted of misdemeanor assault charges in 2010 and who later served time in federal prison related to corruption charges stemming from his time in the City Council.
Also backed by Monserrate is Julie Milner, who was not given a rating by the QCBA after she chose not to participate in the bar association’s review process.
In May, the Eagle reported that Milner’s social media account appeared to show that she was prone to spreading conspiracy theories and that she shared opinions on a number of political topics despite judicial ethics rules that prohibit similar comments.
A deep dive into her feed on X unveiled that Milner, who is running as a Democrat, had previously latched on to issues championed by the far-right. She had tweeted seemingly in support of bans on LGBTQ+ books – which she called “filthy, pornographic smut” – in school libraries and has questioned the efficacy and safety of the COVID-19 vaccine.
On at least two occasions, Milner herself appeared to call for the execution of President Joe Biden.
Monserrate, who is himself running for the state Assembly, has found success backing judicial candidates who challenge Queens County Democratic Party-backed candidates.
In 2019, now-Judge Lumarie Maldonado-Cruz, who was backed by Monserrate, beat out Wyatt Gibbons, a judicial candidate supported by the Queens County Democratic Party. Later that year, the party’s judicial delegates nominated Gibbons to run for a spot on the Supreme Court bench, where he currently serves.
In 2021, now-Judge Soma Syed, who petitioned with a number of candidates tied to Monserrate, upset Michael Goldman, who was backed by the Queens Dems, in a race for Civil Court.
In 2022, Queens County Democratic Party candidate Thomas Oliva was defeated by now-Judge Maria Gonzalez, who was supported by Monserrate. Gonzalez did not have a campaign website until a little less than a month before election day.
None of his preferred candidates beat out their Queens Dems opponents in 2023.
Rating the judges
Each election cycle, the Judiciary Committee of the QCBA joins the New York City Bar Association's Judiciary Committee to screen judicial candidates and give them either a rating of “well qualified,” “qualified,” or “not approved.”
Those who are rated qualified are found to be “of satisfactory skill, experience, conduct and demeanor for the position being sought,” according to the QCBA.
The QCBA’s Judicial Committee requires that candidates first fill out an application. 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 Association. 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.
Ratings such as the ones given by the QCBA are often one of the few tools voters have to inform their vote for judicial candidates at the polls. Judicial candidates are prevented, due to state ethics rules, from discussing much more than their resume while on the campaign trail.
“These screening and reviews are among the most important tasks the association undertakes each year,” Leslie Nizin, the chair of the QCBA’s Judiciary Committee, said in a statement. “It helps ensure that the most qualified individuals are sitting on the bench and that the justice system operates smoothly and fairly for all litigants.”
The NYCBA’s ratings of judicial candidates had yet to be released by the time of this paper’s publication. They are expected to be released at some point before the end of the week.
