I have been retired from the Appellate Division, First Department, now for six months. Some days I feel like I never was there; on others, I have to be careful that I don’t wind up taking transportation from home directly to 25th Street and Madison Ave. I retired in February 2017 after serving 19 years at the First Department and 35 years overall on the New York State Judiciary. Around the time of my retirement from judicial service, I had the opportunity to write in these pages about the feelings and apprehension I had about my impending departure from a place that I loved, from a law job that I considered the very best law job one could ever imagine. I had many concerns and apprehensions about leaving the cocoon of the court system and especially about leaving the magisterial First Department, one of the most prestigious courts in the United States.
But, slowly over these transitional six months, I have started to see that there is life after the bench. I have become part of a wonderful new law firm—the people are embracing and the work is interesting. I am their judge! I am sought out by lawyers at all levels to provide insight into litigation strategy and to bring an inside-eye to written court submissions. I still think like a judge though, not exactly like an advocate, and it will probably be awhile before that tendency subsides—or perhaps it never will. Or maybe the firm I work for doesn’t actually want that “vice” to disappear because it gives them an insight that they did not have before. Almost everyone calls me Judge, although I have finally cajoled some of the senior attorneys to call me by my first name. There is still respect from outside lawyers who may have remembered me from my days on the bench. On the debit side, it is absolutely true that your telephone calls are not returned as promptly as they were in the past.
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