By Samuel Newhouse
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

JAY STREET — A legislative bill to create new Family Court judgeships in Brooklyn and across the state has stalled in Albany, but supporters are optimistic that the bill has landed on the state senate’s agenda and will get passed soon.

The current bill, which was before the senate last Thursday, calls for seven new Family Court judgeships in New York City and 14 elsewhere in the state. The legislation would go into effect Jan. 1, 2010.

The bill was generated by the Office of Court Administration, at the request of state Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, and is sponsored by state Sen. John Sampson (D-Brooklyn).

It is unknown exactly how many of the seven city judgeships would be located in Brooklyn, explained Dennis Hawkins, executive director of The Fund for Modern Courts, which supports the Senate bill.

Currently there are 17 judges sitting in Brooklyn Family Court at 330 Jay St, which includes several Supreme Court judges who are actively hearing some Family Court cases. There are 53 Family Court judges throughout the five boroughs, including Hon. Edwina G. Richardson-Mendelson, the administrative Judge of New York City Family Courts.

Brooklyn, which is the city’s most populated borough, has about a third of the judges in the city. Therefore, it would stand to reason that two or three of the seven new judges in the city would be assigned to Kings County.

“We believe there is a crisis in Family Court because there are too few judges to handle the crushing case-loads in Family Court,� said William Silverman, a founding member of the New York Statewide Coalition for More Family Court Judges, whi has collectively lobbied for the bill to be passed.. “This legislation addresses that crisis.� Silverman, an attorney at Greenberg Traurig LLP, first became involved in family law while working pro bono in Brooklyn Family Court, which he called the nicest Family Court facility in the city. But he is dedicated to seeing new judgeships created to “adjudicate the great number of cases that impact New York’s children and families.�

The number of Family Court judges has been limited by statute since 1991. This new bill calls for a total of 21 new Family Court judges in New York state.

“Those Family Court judges [in New York City] will be appointed by the mayor, and then they’re assigned where needed,� Hawkins told the Eagle. “I imagine what will happen is it will be a ‘need’ test — Which of the Family Courts in the five boroughs are in need of the judgeships, and we just don’t know where that will happen yet.�

The Coalition for More Family Court Judges consists of more than 40 organizations, including advocates for children, rape crisis centers, and advocates for victims of domestic violence. Because of the sensitive nature of the work done by Family Court judges, support to increase the number of judgeships in the city is virtually unanimous.

The Citizens Committee for Children of New York (CCC), one organization in the coalition, recently released an analysis of Family Court caseloads, and called for 14 new judgeships to be created across the city.

“The Family Court system in New York City is desperately short,� said Stephanie Gendell, associate executive director of CCC. “We would be happy to have more judges, even if its fewer than we asked for. We definitely would prefer to have 14, but I’m not even sure 14 would be enough.�

Gendell explained that each of the judgeships will cost approximately $1 million to create. Given spending freezes across the state, Gendell called the willingness by state leaders to spend in this area “a huge step in the right direction.�

Former Chief Judge Judith Kaye also supports the creation of new Family Court judgeships and brought the issue up during her 2008 State of the Judiciary address. “I arrived on the state’s high court directly from a commercial litigation practice, but I stand before you 25-plus years later convinced beyond all else that we must summon our resources and efforts to help the children in our Family Courts,� Kaye said, as quoted in a CCC release.

Another supporter of the movement is City Councilmember Bill de Blasio (D-Park Slope, Carroll Gardens).

“While Nixzmary Brown’s tragic death occurred over three years ago, our city’s Family Courts remain severely overburdened,� de Blasio said in a statement. Brown, a 7-year-old girl from Bedford-Stuyvesant was tortured and killed by her parents, who were both later convicted in Brooklyn Supreme Court on manslaughter charges.

“We all agree that protecting New York’s children must be a top priority, yet we still have not seen the hiring of a new judge in nearly two decades. Senator Sampson’s bill to create seven more Family Court judges for New York City is a key step toward keeping our children safe, and I urge the state Senate to pass and Governor [David] Paterson to sign this vital legislation.�

The city has been statutorily limited to 47 Family Court judges since 1991, although currently there are 53. There are currently 153 Family Court judges statewide.

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