Judge Janet DiFiore, the Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, has joined her predecessors, among them Judges Sol Wachtler, Judith Kaye and Jonathan Lippman, who, in the past, have proposed court consolidation for the purposes of streamlining New York’s court structure and hopefully providing greater efficiency in administrating matters that come before the various courts. She encourages comments regarding the proposal. This article will deal only with the Surrogate’s Court and my views.

The history of the Surrogate’s Court is recorded within the two volume reports, recommendations, and studies of the Bennett Commission, which covered the period 1962 to 1967 and the six reports of the Advisory Committee to the legislature on EPTL and SCPA of which I was chair, and recites the development of the Surrogate’s Court in great detail and efforts made to either abolish or strengthen the court that dealt with trusts and estates.