When Judge Juliet Howard, newly appointed to New York City’s Housing Court, takes the bench this month in Brooklyn, she will be part of a historic moment, the Richard C. Failla LGBTQ Commission of NY Courts announced this week.

Howard’s wife, Judge Norma Jennings, serves in housing court in the Bronx, and the pair is believed to be the first married same-sex couple appointed to the same court in New York.