Thanks to a recent New York Law Journal series of inspirations from former Appellate Division, Second Department Justice Alan Scheinkman and Nassau County Supreme Court Justice Timothy Driscoll, I add my salute to their judicial mentor reminiscences: Presiding Justice Marcus G. Christ of the Appellate Division, Second Department was “my judge” from 1963-70, the most formative mentor of my career.
Christ was a brilliant jurist with a common-sense persona grounded in an early 20th-century upbringing on Long Island, when it was farm country bursting into modern suburbia. Harvard Law School-educated and civic-minded, he was an eminently successful lawyer, and then outstanding jurist at both the trial and appellate levels. A gifted story teller, he had a homespun touch that was always respectful and never hurtful.
