When Martin Tankleff stepped forward Wednesday to sign the attorney roll book, just minutes after being sworn in as a newly minted lawyer in New York, he met eyes for a moment, he says, with one of the Appellate Division, Second Department justices who had voted in 2007 to overturn his wrongful murder conviction.

“One of the judges from the [2007 appellate] panel was almost directly in front of me, and we looked at each other, sort of recognizing how significant this day is,” Tankleff said in a phone interview with the New York Law Journal on Wednesday, just hours after he became a lawyer, fulfilling a dream and a calling that he says began during the 17 years he spent in state prison for allegedly murdering his parents.