Mayor, chief judge appoint members to revive Judicial Advisory Committee
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Mayor Zohran Mamdani appointed a number of members to the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary on Wednesday. File photo by Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office
By Jacob Kaye
The mayor, chief judge and appellate division supervising judges appointed 18 members to the once nearly vacant Mayor’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary on Wednesday.
Eighteen legal professionals, including a handful from Queens, were appointed to the committee by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Chief Judge Rowan Wilson, and the supervising judges of the First and Second Departments of the Appellate Division, joining Queens attorney Ali Najmi, the committee’s chair, in evaluating and recommending candidates for judicial appointments to the city’s Family Court, Civil Court and Criminal Court benches.
The appointments come only days after it was reported that the committee’s executive director, Ayanna Sorett, had resigned, leaving Najmi as the committee’s sole member. A spokesperson for the mayor told the Eagle earlier this week that they hope to find a new executive director “soon.”
After being effectively dormant during the first six months of Mamdani’s term, the committee is expected to soon begin to meet and issue its first judicial appointment recommendations to the mayor by October, according to City Hall.
“I am proud to announce our full slate of appointments to the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary,” said Mayor Mamdani. “The Committee will help ensure that our judicial system reflects the city it serves, applies the rule of law universally and does so without favor. These members bring a diverse range of legal expertise, and I am confident they will carry out this important responsibility with fairness, independence and integrity.”
The committee’s new members include practicing attorneys, law professors, legal nonprofit leaders and judges.
Among them is a former candidate for Queens district attorney, Mina Malik, who currently serves as the CEO of The Cochran Firm – New York. Also appointed was Martin LaFalce, a professor at St. John’s University School of Law who spent over a decade with the Legal Aid Society; Juan Luciano, a divorce lawyer who practiced in Queens; Judge Kristen Booth, a former Supreme Court justice and dean of Queens’ CUNY School of Law; A. Camila Popin, a divorce and family law attorney who runs a private practice in Queens; Thomas Principe, a former prosecutor with the Queens district attorney’s office who now works as a partner at Kramer, Dillof, Livingston & Moore in Manhattan; Julia Hernandez, a professor at the CUNY School of Law; and Jared M. Trujillo, a professor at the CUNY School of Law and former president of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys – UAW Local 2325.
“These appointments reflect the breadth of talent, experience and commitment to justice that New Yorkers deserve,” Twyla Carter, the attorney-in-chief of the Legal Aid Society, said in a statement. “The nominees bring diverse perspectives and deep expertise from across the legal profession — from public defense, including former Legal Aid attorneys, and civil rights advocacy to academia, private practice and public service. A judicial selection process that draws on this range of experience strengthens both our courts and the public’s confidence in them.”
Reforming the committee
As one of his first acts of office, Mamdani issued an executive order pledging to “revitalize” the committee.
Mamdani directed the committee, which helps appoint around a third of the city’s judges, to make its judicial selection process more transparent.
Advocates have accused the committee in the past of being guarded about its selection process, leaving the public with little understanding of why someone was selected to serve on the bench and why others were passed over. The committee has also been criticized for often recommending prosecutors or court attorneys for judicial positions, ignoring entire swaths of the city’s legal community.
Mamdani’s executive order directed the committee to regularly publish demographic data on the judicial applicant pool, and make a searchable database for New Yorkers to monitor upcoming appointments.
Neither change has been fully implemented on the committee’s website.
The mayor and his committee chair recommitted themselves to the reforms on Wednesday.
“I am honored to chair this group of leading legal practitioners and scholars,” Najmi, who was appointed in January, said in a statement. “The mayor has made transparency in judicial selection a priority and today’s appointments are just the beginning of that work. I look forward to leading this talented committee and helping to deliver a more just city.”
Here’s who else was appointed to the committee”
Dianisbeth Acquie, the assistant dean of the Office of Judicial Careers at Columbia Law School; Jill Soffiyah Elijah, the founder and former executive director of the Alliance of Families for Justice; Everett Hopkins, the managing attorney of Hopkins Law Group, LLC; Sherbune Paul, an attorney at Russo & Gould LLP; Amber Baylor, the founding director of the Criminal Defense Clinic and Clinical Professor of Law at Columbia Law School; Judge Milton Tingling, the first African American county clerk of New York County; Joseph Drayton, a partner at Proskauer Rose LLP; Danielle Jones, the assistant managing attorney at Proskauer Rose LLP; Judge William Mastro, who served in New York State Supreme Court and the Appellate Division, Second Department; and Dennis Fan, the founder and director of Columbia Law School’s Appellate Litigation Clinic.
