Housing Court judge outlines heavy workload ahead
/
Housing Court Supervising Judge John Lansden (bottom right) led a CLE with Housing Court updates Tuesday. Screenshot via Zoom
By Rachel Vick
The Queens County Bar Association hosted a CLE Monday to discuss the resumption of Housing Court operations to give attorneys an idea of the situation at hand.
Queens Supervising Judge John Lansden explained the most recent changes in Queens Housing Court, including a number of personnel changes and the challenges of the reopening in the midst of a staffing shortage.
Some judges and court attorneys shifted positions for the first time in two years. In addition to the attrition of retired judges, Queens had two court attorneys transferred out of Queens to even out placement citywide.
Judge Sergio Jimenez was moved from Queens to Brooklyn, but Kings County Judge Jeannine Baer Kuzniewski — who once served as a Queens Court Attorney — will soon be filling the spot, Lansden said.
“The simple fact is that this lag of about a month is caused by personnel shortages,” Lansden said. “As you may be aware there were a number of retirements, of promotions of transfers during COVID and OCA is still in the process of trying to catch up and hire staff to replace those who fit in those proper categories.”
“Any unforeseen absences... will leave Housing Court scrambling to provide coverage, and certainly leave at least one judge without a court attorney,” Lansden said. “We ask that you be patient. As you can imagine, resources are stretched this thin [and we try to] do our best.”
The court brought in four new clerks and assistants, but because they are being trained while also trying to manage the work, things have yet to reach peak efficiency — though Lansden remains confident they’ll get there.
Cases are currently in the process of being calendared in order of index number, and Lansden encouraged members of the bar to confer beforehand and let the courts know if a case they were working was resolved and needs to be dismissed, in order to free up space for cases new and old.
“That was a spot I could have used for somebody else’s case… if you had taken the time to let us know, and unless you only have the one case left, you're only hurting yourself,” he said.
Though other courts are purposefully double booking appearances on the off chance one party doesn’t show, Lasnden says he does that as the most efficient solution.
There are about 77 petitions waiting to be assigned an index number, and filings are up at least 10 percent, according to Lansden. Hundreds have been calendared with some dates being set as far ahead as spring.
Housing Preservation and Development cases are being handled at a slower pace as the court waits for HPD to assign an additional lawyer to Queens’ parts, a courtesy other counties have already been given, according to Lansden.
Lansden also urged attorneys to file as many cases in one visit to the courthouse as possible to reduce foot traffic in the building as visitor numbers are increasing.
Every case is presumed to be heard in-person unless the parties give the court a reason for a virtual appearance.
Lansden assured the listeners that he hates having a backlog and has a good track record of managing it, adding that “time will tell whether I'll be as successful with these particular backlogs.”
