Unopposed NY Lawyer Running
for Judgeship Doesn't Make List of "Qualified" Candidates

By Daniel Wise
New York Law Journal
New York Lawyer
September 7, 2007

The Democratic Party's candidate for a countywide Civil Court seat in Manhattan was not among the candidates rated as "qualified" on a list released Tuesday by a newly created court system screening panel.

Robert R. Reed, who is unopposed, is appealing his omission from the 15-member panel's list of qualified candidates, said Arthur Greig, counsel to the Manhattan Democratic Party.

The list of approved candidates released by the screening panel for the First Judicial District, which covers Manhattan, was one of seven that have been released to date.

A new court rule, Part 150 of the Rules of the Chief Administrative Judge, required that screening panels be appointed in each of the state's 12 judicial districts. Screening panels for the five remaining judicial districts - four in the Second Department and the Bronx in the First Department - will be released before the end of the month. This year's party primaries for Civil Court are Sept. 18.

Under the rule, the Office of Court Administration (OCA) is not releasing the names of candidates screened by the panels but found not qualified.

The screening process established by Part 150 is deeply flawed, said Mr. Greig, who called the failure to rate Mr. Reed qualified "a political hit on New York County's nominee."

In a statement released yesterday, Assemblyman Herman D. Farrell, the chairman of the Manhattan Democratic Party, likened the committee's interview process to the way black voters were grilled "in the 1930s" by election officials in the deep South, scrutinizing whether they had met literacy and other voter-qualification requirements. Mr. Reed is black.

Mr. Reed, a solo practitioner since 2006, was counsel in the commercial litigation department of Bryan Cave for six years before that. A 1984 graduate of Harvard law School, Mr. Reed had also worked for five years at the Attorney General's Office, where he rose to become deputy chief of the Civil Rights Bureau.

He declined to comment on the screening panel's decision.

David Bookstaver, the OCA's spokesman, did not respond to the criticism directly, but said the new statewide screening panels were "born out of a good government initiative and designed to give the public more information about candidates" for elected judicial office.

The requirement for the statewide screening of candidates for elected judgeships grew out of a recommendation by a committee headed by former Fordham Law School Dean John D. Feerick. The committee had been appointed by Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye to shore up public confidence in the state's elected judiciary in the wake of remarks by Democratic Party officials in Brooklyn that they were entitled to lucrative court appointments and the bribery indictment - and later conviction - of a Brooklyn Supreme Court justice.

The fact that Mr. Reed was not on the list released by the screening panel for the First Judicial Department was discovered by the Law Journal as it gathered information about those candidates who had been rated qualified.

Mr. Bookstaver said the rule forbidding the release of the names of those found not qualified was designed to protect them from embarrassment. He also said the prohibition was aimed at avoiding "an intrusion into the political process by suggesting that voters should choose one candidate over another."

Missed Deadline

At least one other active judicial candidate was not on the list of names released so far by the screening panels.

Incumbent Kingston City Court Judge James P. Gilpatric, in the Third Judicial District, said that while other incumbent City Court judges had received notification of the requirement to submit for the new review, he had not received any such notice. By the time he was alerted to the requirement, Judge Gilpatric said, he did not have time to prepare the extensive paperwork. The committee has since extended the deadline, and he will submit the required information by today and be given an interview in the next two weeks.

The Manhattan panel found eight candidates qualified for the sole opening this year on the Supreme Court in that borough. The only non-judge to make the cut was Mark R. Dwyer, chief of appeals in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. Also found qualified were Civil Court Judges Paul G. Feinman, Ellen Gesmer, Judith J. Gische, Barbara Jaffe, Shirley W. Kornreich and Michael D. Stallman and Criminal Court Judge Laura E. Drager. All of the judges, except Judge Jaffe, are acting Supreme Court justices.

The Manhattan Democratic Party however, has its own screening panel, which was scheduled to meet last night to select three of the eight contenders for consideration by the party's judicial-nomination convention when it convenes on Sept. 24. By operation of a party rule, the convention delegates are bound to select the party's nominee from the three candidates recommended by its screening committee.

There are also three incumbent Supreme Court justices in Manhattan who have been found qualified by both the court system's and the party's screening panels. They are Justice Sheila Abdus-Salaam; Justice Fern A. Fisher, the administrative judge of the Civil Court; and Justice Charles E. Ramos.

Each of the 12 screening panels created by Part 150 has 10 members appointed by either the chief judge or a presiding justices of one of the four departments of the Appellate Division. The remaining five members of each panel are chosen by bar association leaders.

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