Helping to alleviate surrogate caseload, Justice Balter brings direct link to legendary Surrogate Sobel
A backlog of cases in Brooklyn Surrogate Court has been alleviated by the expertise of Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Bruce Balter, assigned to help since late February.
Since then, according to the Office of Court Administration, Justice Balter has moved at least 50 of the older cases, Those cases, and others being concluded currently, were part of the backlog of uncontested probate proceedings and letters of administration, allowing many estates, some of which were indigent, to proceed with lawsuits vital to the estates.
The backlog in Surrogate’s Court in part reflects a larger issue of Kings County’s position as perhaps the busiest court system in the U.S. But it also resulted from what was reported in the New York Law Journal as a communication problem between the two sitting Surrogates, Margarita Lopez Torres and Diana Johnson.
In the Law Journal article, Surrogate Lopez Torres issued a statement that said, in part, “The cases that were referred to Justice Balter were uncontested matters that arose from conflicts affecting one of the surrogates in which she had to recuse herself … Surrogates Johnson and Lopez Torres have worked out an arrangement that will resolve this situation, obviating the need for the further involvement of Justice Balter.”
Surrogate Lopez Torres further added, referring to her fellow Surrogate Johnson, that “we have a collegial relationship and are able to make decisions on matters necessary to the court.”