By any measure, the addition of 25 judges to New York’s Family Court system must be considered good news. (“Addition of Judges Easing Burden in Family Court,” NYLJ, Nov. 28). Never mind that the need for additional Family Court judges was already considered urgent when I served as a Family Court judge in 1998.
Family Court judges handle the most difficult and vexing legal and social problem—including among them juvenile crime, child abuse, domestic violence, custody and visitation, and adoption. And, so it is a real tribute to them and to court administrators, and a mark of real success, that the number of pending cases has dropped by eight percent during the first 10 months of 2015. (In context, that still leaves more than 71,000 cases to be resolved.)
