Newsday Investigative Report – Judges - November 19, 2000
It's Their Call:
LI's surrogate judges award legal work to a small, well-connected group
Parties’Full-Court Press:
How politics pervades the judiciary on Long Island
The Route to Bench:
Party Line: Judicial candidates must pay political dues before getting chance
Justice, Politics, Cash and the Bar:
For their campaign funds, judges turn to the lawyers they work with every day
Judges And A Jury Of Their Peers:
Before lawyers can become judges, they face screening by ... a panel of other lawyers
Camaraderie In, Out of Court: Close ties between bar, bench
Courting A Job?
It’s Who You Know: Analysis of hiring records shows courthouse jobs go to the politically connected
Select Cast Gets Lucrative Roles:
To take on receiverships, other court appointments, judges pick who they know
GOP Rivals Fail to Ally: Democrats turn to ex-judge
Verdicts Vary on LI's Judges: Lawyers, data point to range of behavior
Cool and Calm? Not Always . . .Temperament can be good, bad or ugly
Backlog of Cases in Suffolk County:
Similar counties have embraced better ways to manage them
Selection Vs. Election:
Appointment backers say elective-system politics can keep good judges off bench
It's Their Call:
LI's surrogate judges award legal work to a small, well-connected group
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by Robin Topping and Katie Thomas
Staff Writers
In life, Jean Stralem surrounded herself with opulence. Picasso, Matisse and Van Gogh hung on her walls. A household staff catered to her needs in a 14-room townhouse on Park Avenue. A country estate provided her elegant refuge in Glen Cove. And sunny retreats in California and Florida gave her respite from winter's chill.
In death, the banking heiress left an $80-million fortune and the seeds of a family squabble that would turn out to be nearly as extraordinary.
As art aficionados geared up in May 1995 for the auction of Stralem's collection, an epic legal battle was gaining steam. It would be a battle that would show as much about the exclusive world of wealth and luxury that spawned it as about the insular legal world of influence and favor where it was fought -- Surrogate Court.
After her two granddaughters, one of whom had been disinherited, couldn't agree on whether Stralem's will was valid, some of the area's most prestigious law firms began filing court papers and preparing for the fight. Nassau Surrogate C. Raymond Radigan decided he needed help.
So he turned to those he knew. He appointed retired Westchester Surrogate Evans Brewster to oversee the daily case developments. And he hired former County Court Judge Raymond Harrington, a onetime acting surrogate, to represent the interests of children of one of the warring sisters. Harrington hired two assistants: Richard T. Kerins, the former senior court officer in Radigan's courtroom and then-deputy public administrator; Harrington also hired his own daughter, Patricia.
Radigan then appointed Mark Lieberman, a former Nassau Off-Track Betting Corp. official and former state lobbyist for Nassau's three towns, to protect the interests of different grandchildren in the case. And Lieberman selected Michael Feigenbaum, a former counsel to the Queens public administrator, to help him.
By the time the case was finished five years later, Radigan had approved almost $1.4 million in fees from the estate for these attorneys, all of whom have connections to each other, the court system or the political establishment.
While the Stralem estate is bigger and more complex than the bulk of disputes coming through Long Island's Surrogate Courts, the case reveals how these assignments are frequently made -- it's connections that count.
New York state's surrogate system long had been known for patronage abuses and was overhauled in the mid-1980s in the wake of a major scandal involving former U.S. Rep. Geraldine Ferraro's husband. But despite new rules that have limited the impact of favoritism, a Newsday study has found that politics continues to infiltrate the process.
More than 3,100 lawyers are eligible for these assignments in Nassau and Suffolk, but, in the last five years, only a small circle got most of them, work that paid $5.6 million.
That cadre of attorneys has been overwhelmingly Republican -- a given in the world of Long Island politics where the GOP has historically dominated the judiciary. They have been appointed by judges who are also products of the party and they are paid fees that range from $100 to $300 an hour, amounts ultimately up to the judges' discretion.
None of that surprises Suffolk Republican chairman Anthony Apollaro.
"You have to remember that this is the way the system has been set up for years,” he said, "that this is coin of the realm, all tempered with the fact that you have to be qualified.”
In Suffolk County, two of the top money earners in the past five years were Babylon attorney Vincent Berger Jr., who ran Suffolk Surrogate A. Gail Prudenti's 1995 campaign and earned $52,500 in fees, and Southampton GOP leader John Czygier, who made $92,913. Czygier is considered the leading contender to succeed Prudenti, who was elected to State Supreme Court this fall, as surrogate.
In Nassau, Garden City lawyer M. Allan Hyman, whose firm is a top GOP contributor and serves as Nassau Republican Chairman Joseph Mondello's professional base, earned $59,304. Joseph Carlino, a former speaker of the State Assembly and ex-Nassau GOP leader now practicing in Mineola, made $38,750.
\The appointees include elected officials, party leaders, bar association officials, retired judges, former law clerks, members of politically active law firms and relatives of politicians. A look at the assignments made in Long Island's Surrogate Court over the past five years shows just how tight a group it is:
While 529 lawyers received appointments, a much smaller group earned most of the money. For example, the top 40 attorneys earned 79 percent of the money in Nassau and 55 percent of the total in Suffolk.
At least 60 percent of the total fees in both counties went to lawyers with political or legal connections.
Despite rules created in the wake of past scandals, judges have few guidelines for approving fees or filling positions. And though lawyers and judges are required to report appointments and fees, there is no central tracking system to catch violations. In fact, Newsday found five instances in which lawyers appeared to have violated a rule limiting the number of large fees in one year.
Some appointees are moonlighting public officials. The list includes such full-time officials as Kerins, now the Nassau public administrator, and Islip Town Attorney Vincent Messina, as well as powerful state Sens. James Lack (R-East Northport), who made $56,587 for 21 appointments in Suffolk, and Brookhaven Town Board Member Kenneth LaValle (R-Port Jefferson), who made $9,513 for 16 appointments.
Lawyers hired to assist appointees are not required to report their share of a fee to the state. In a handful of instances in which these attorneys earned thousands of dollars, the state had no record of their appointments. For example, while there is a record of the $683,000 Harrington earned in the Stralem case, there is no record that Kerins shared in more than $200,000 of that fee.
The vast majority of appointments are known as guardians ad litem. State law requires surrogates to appoint lawyers to act as watchdogs over the interests of minors or incapacitated adults in estate cases. But while these assignments can sometimes be complex and challenging, they usually involve reviewing paperwork and dealing with fairly simple legal issues. They also don't often require contact with the person whose interests the lawyer represents.
The more routine assignments are perfect plums for a lawyer just starting out, a retired attorney phasing out his practice, or someone who practices law only part-time. For some, appointments can provide a dependable, moderate source of income. For others, taking them can build a relationship with the judge and land them more lucrative assignments in the future.
"Most of it is simply being a very good caretaker of money,” said Geoffrey Hazard, professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania. "It takes a high degree of honesty, but it's not rocket science.”
Both Radigan, who retired this year, and Prudenti came out of the world of politics, but both say they appointed guardians strictly on merit. Radigan said he couldn't ignore that many qualified lawyers are also political. "A lot of people who are politically connected are also involved in trusts and estate work,” he said. "You can't just block them out.”
Both judges also said they preferred to rely on a small group of trusted lawyers for particularly difficult or sensitive assignments.
"We're the ones who get burned if something goes wrong... We're not going to put a stranger in there,” Radigan said.
But experts say judges should be careful about repeatedly calling on attorneys they know through political and legal circles.
"The individual might well be qualified for the appointment, but the fact remains the judge might also be making the appointment as a means of favoritism,” said Jeffrey M. Shaman, professor of law at DePaul University in Chicago and an expert in judicial ethics. "And when there is a pattern, it creates an appearance that is questionable.”
In his successful bid to replace Radigan and become Nassau's first-ever Democratic surrogate, District Court Judge John Riordan campaigned, in part, on making the appointment process more open. Riordan, who was elected in this month's election, said, "I think there are some Democratic attorneys who practice in that area who I understand feel excluded. To the extent they are excluded based on party affiliation, I would rectify that.”
The state's chief administrative judge, Jonathan Lippman, acknowledged that the system should require more accountability on the part of both lawyers and judges to limit favoritism.
"You can have all the reforms in the world ... but it is meaningless if people don't have the confidence that you run a system that is impartial,” Lippman said.
Earlier this year, Lippman and Chief Judge Judith Kaye appointed a commission to re-examine the rules regarding limiting fees, setting qualifications, improving monitoring and eliminating favoritism. The commission was created after the disclosure of a letter from two Democratic Brooklyn lawyers complaining to their party leaders that they had been cut out of legal assignments because of politics.
Kaye and Lippman also named an inspector general to look into possible rule violations. If judges are found to be breaking the rules, they face possible censure or removal by the state's Judicial Conduct Commission and lawyers could be disciplined by the court.
But even so, Lippman acknowledges there is a "political overlay” to appointments that will never be entirely eliminated. "Do I think it's a terrible thing that people involved in public life receive this? No, I don't,” Lippman said. "What we're concerned about is that no one abuses the system.”
The appointment process has become one way to reward party faithfuls and keep the political apparatus running, experts say. While all the appointees interviewed said they were qualified for the assignments, guardians ad litem are picked at the judge's discretion and don't need special qualifications, other than being attorneys and not being related to a sitting judge.
"It's like the appointees have two jobs, doing the job for the court and doing the job in terms of producing background political support, which is why they got the appointment,” said Hazard, also the principal consultant for the American Bar Association's Code of Judicial Conduct. "You say, well, it's just a few percentage points in their little tollbooth, but, of course, it has an effect on engendering cynicism in the public.”
Clearly, Republican attorneys, including active party officials and workers, have reaped the benefits of the appointive system. Of the lawyers making more than $5,000 over the last five years, the analysis showed that 65 percent of appointees in Nassau and Suffolk were registered Republicans, while only 16 percent were Democrats. The percentage of registered Republicans in Long Island's voting population is 40 percent in Suffolk and 44 percent in Nassau.
"If you ... do not have some kind of political or cultural tie with the Nassau GOP... the probabilities of your being invited to do or perform legitimate legal work by the court are fairly low,” said Gerard Terry, counsel to the Nassau Democratic Party.
One respected trusts and estates specialist in Nassau, who is not politically involved, said he doesn't receive appointments despite his credentials. "There clearly are a substantial number of attorneys who are qualified to do work in the Surrogate Court, to do complex and contested litigation in Surrogate Court, who nonetheless do not get appointments,” said the lawyer, who asked not to be named.
Both counties' surrogates are not permitted to engage in politics -- except when they are running for re-election -- but they know the political landscape.
In Suffolk, Prudenti was elected surrogate in 1995 after just four years as a State Supreme Court justice -- a rise due in no small part to her history with the Suffolk Republican Party. She grew up as the daughter of the former GOP leader and was politically active before taking the bench. She was also appointed administrative judge and now with her election back to the Supreme Court, she becomes eligible for an appointment to the Appellate Division.
Radigan was elected surrogate after serving as a political leader in Farmingdale and the longtime clerk to John Bennett, the former surrogate and former Republican state lawmaker who was a political force in his own right.
Both Radigan and Prudenti say their familiarity with politics doesn't taint the appointment process.
"Do I know who the political people are? I was in politics,” said Radigan, "but I'm very sensitive to whether or not they are going to be qualified or not.” Prudenti agreed: "If you look at the big picture, you will see lawyers coming here from all walks of life. I appoint them because they are good lawyers.”
Some high-profile Republicans appointed in Suffolk in the last five years include former State Senate Majority Leader Ralph Marino, with two appointments worth $9,700, and former presiding officer of the Suffolk legislature Gregory Blass, with $26,925 for 24 appointments.
In Nassau, Radigan took the bench 20 years ago with the help of then-county Republican leader Joseph Margiotta and many of the attorneys receiving assignments date to that time. In the last five years, these included Michael Ricigliano, Margiotta's law partner, with $26,500 for two Nassau appointments, and Philip Bisceglia, former counsel to numerous prominent state legislators, with $16,750 for three.
"It's a reflection of the fact that he got his position in another era,” said Mondello, now the party chairman.
A handful of the top-earning guardians ad litem are attorneys whose law practices take a backseat to their primary occupation -- serving the public either as an elected official or a full-time government employee.
In Nassau and Suffolk combined, assignments in the last five years have gone to two Nassau County legislators, two state senators, the Islip town attorney and six councilmen from various towns.
Two officials held full-time jobs at the time they took appointments. Messina, the Islip town attorney, has earned $31,976 for 24 appointments from Prudenti and Weber over the past five years. He is the son of Jeannette Messina, Islip's deputy town supervisor and a town Republican leader. He said most of his cases are conducted through correspondence. When they do require time in court, he takes vacation days, he said. "It does not ever interfere with anything.”
Some cases do require intense work and long hours. Kerins, who earned $214,474 as an assistant on the Stralem estate, took the job while working full-time as deputy public administrator and said he took vacation time for scheduled court appearances or other work on the case. The public administrator's office manages estates in which no one is willing or able to serve as executor, or manager of the estate's finances. Often these cases come through Surrogate Court.
When asked if the time-consuming Stralem appointment gave an improper appearance, Kerins, who Radigan promoted to public administrator recently, said, "I don't see that at all. I see me being part of that American dream where if you work hard and you're diligent, and you apply your talent, I'm entitled to it.”
But Kerin's appointment troubled Barbara Reed, associate executive director of the Fund for Modern Courts, a Manhattan court reform group.
"I would certainly hope that most public officials would refrain from entering into such a public arrangement,” she said. With the exception of Kerins and Messina, all of the officials who received appointments are considered part-time workers.
Several officials who got appointments acknowledge that their familiarity with the judge helped them gain entry into the circle. "I think it makes a difference,” said Edward Hennessey, one of three Brookhaven Town councilmen who have received appointments from Prudenti, a former lawyer for the Brookhaven GOP, and former Surrogate Ernest Signorelli. Hennessey, who said he had to do good work to earn Prudenti's trust, made $8,650 for 12 appointments over the last five years.
Both Lack and LaValle, the state senators to whom Prudenti assigned appointments, maintain part-time law practices that focus on trusts and estates. Both said they were qualified. "It's not because of my influence as a member of the Senate, or else I would have gotten far more referrals than I did,” LaValle said.
Both Radigan and Prudenti also tapped those with connections in the legal field. Among them are retired law clerks and former judges, such as former Appellate Division Justice Joseph Kunzeman and former Queens Surrogate Louis Laurino. "They have rewarded my trust, and they have done excellent work,” said Prudenti, who gave Kunzeman 15 assignments worth $73,090 and Laurino $33,450 for six appointments over five years.
Whether active in political or legal circles, these well-connected attorneys are more likely to get the higher-paying assignments, the Newsday analysis shows. In both counties, three-quarters of the total given to lawyers making more than $15,000 over five years went to these lawyers.
And they made on average more money than their less well-connected colleagues. Of the lawyers making more than $15,000 in that time period, those with no clear political or legal connections earned an average of $26,964 in Suffolk and $23,855 in Nassau. But lawyers with a political or legal connection earned an average of $39,354 in Suffolk and $65,696 in Nassau, including the high fees in the Stralem case.
Compared with her predecessor, Signorelli, Prudenti has opened up the appointment process, encouraging more young lawyers to get involved. But the approximately 275 attorneys she appointed in the last five years is a fraction of the approximately 2,100 on the state's list of those eligible in Suffolk.
County Court Judge Gary Weber took over as acting surrogate from Prudenti when she became administrative judge last year, but she still makes some appointments. As administrative judge, she manages the Suffolk court system.
Until the mid-1980s, judges had free rein to make court appointments, with no limits on whom they could appoint, how much they could pay, or how often they could hire the same people.
That changed in 1985, after a scandal a year earlier in which John Zaccaro, husband of then-vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, borrowed money from a Queens estate he was hired to protect. Zaccaro was not a lawyer, and was removed from the case.
In the wake of the controversy, the state courts' Administrative Board approved new rules that were designed to limit the extent to which favoritism could influence the appointment process.
Those rules require that an appointee must be a lawyer, must be on a state-generated list and cannot be related to a sitting judge. But there are no minimum standards for training, other than those imposed by the local judge.
The state also mandates that judges and lawyers report the assignments and fees. Lawyers are also barred from taking more than one appointment in a 12-month-period that yields more than $5,000.
But 15 years after the changes were imposed, lawyers, judicial experts and the judges themselves agree that the rules are weak and difficult to enforce.
For example, the state has no central tracking system of fees earned by lawyers. An analysis of Office of Court Administration data for Nassau and Suffolk cases over the last five years shows five lawyers who apparently exceeded the $5,000 fee limit, but the state never took note of the violations.
State records show that among them is former Suffolk Family Court judge and former Acting Suffolk Surrogate Joseph Snellenburg, who received two appointments from Prudenti in 1996 that exceeded $5,000 -- one for $20,000, and one for $50,000. However, Prudenti's Chief Clerk Michael Cipollino said he had no record of the $20,000 appointment and the public court file is sealed for unrelated reasons. Snellenburg declined to comment.
In 1995, Smithtown attorney and former state and Suffolk Bar Association President Joshua Pruzansky received two appointments that later yielded fees of $30,000 and a $20,000. In 1998, he received two appointments that later yielded a $15,000 fee and a $6,000 fee.
Pruzansky said he couldn't anticipate the exact fees on these cases, and the lag between appointments and payments often made it difficult to follow the rule.
Cipollino, who agreed the rule is difficult to comply with, nevertheless said it's up to the lawyers to give the judge reliable information.
Lippman concedes there could be "inadvertent violations” of the rule. But he added: "To me the rules are clear ... the lawyers are not just lay people, they are officers of the court.” While guardians ad litem are governed by this state reporting system, there are no such rules for the assistants they sometimes hire.
For example, there is no record of the appointment of Republican Chairman Mondello in 1996 to help another lawyer represent three grandchildren who inherited money in the will of a wealthy Glen Cove woman.
Mondello said he put in many hours on the court case and shared a fee of $13,616 with the other attorney, Philip Bisceglia. "I consulted with him, met and decided how to handle things. He did his part, and I did mine,” said Mondello.
Radigan, who made the appointments, said in court papers that both lawyers were needed because of "their knowledge and in order to expedite the services that have to be performed by a guardian ad litem.”
Mondello said he can't recall exactly how much of the $13,616 fee he got, but he said he completed all the reporting requirements. "I have no knowledge it would not be reported ... If that wasn't done, it's not my fault,” he said.
Mondello's case is just one of several that Newsday found in which the state had no record of the appointment of an assistant to a guardian ad litem.
While Prudenti won't allow the use of assistants, Radigan generally does, sometimes appointing them himself. He said it's necessary in complicated litigation.
In the Stralem case, about one-third of the total fee earned by Harrington went to the two assistants: his daughter, who earned $44,300, and Kerins, who made $214,474.
Though the state had a record of the total money earned, they had no record of Kerins or Patricia Harrington working on the case. Harrington said he attached a rider to his own fee report listing the amount both assistants made.
The other guardian ad litem appointed to the Stralem case, Lieberman, shared a more than $500,000 fee with his assistant, Feigenbaum, though the state had no record of Feigenbaum's involvement. The appointees say they all were qualified. Harrington said he hired Kerins because "he was a very knowledgeable guy in estates and trusts, and so he seemed like a good guy for me to have around.” He said he chose his daughter because "she's a hell of a good lawyer.”
And despite the hefty fees earned during the case, lawyers for both Stralem granddaughters say they were satisfied with the work done by the guardians ad litem and their assistants.
Experts say there are ways to avoid risking the appearance of favoritism and to ensure quality representation. One possible alternative to the current appointment system would be a list of trust and estate specialists, qualified by an outside panel, that would be available to judges on a random or rotating basis.
Lippman said the way the state's law guardians are selected is one possible model that would raise the standards for guardian ad litem appointments. Law guardians are appointed to represent the interests of children in Family Court and custody cases in Supreme Court. While guardians ad litem are picked from a state list at the judge's discretion, attorneys interested in working as law guardians must be qualified by a panel run by the state court system and prove they have adequate experience. If they are selected, they must attend courses and observe an experienced law guardian on several cases.
"It's highly regulated, it's very organized, and you have to be recertified every year,” said Robert Mangi, a law guardian and former chairman of the Family Law Committee for the Nassau Bar Association.
Without such a system for Surrogate Court appointments, judges are left to cultivate their own list of attorneys, inevitably relying on some of the same people, whether it is because of politics or personal relationships, experts say. "If you construct a framework for these appointments, it helps the judges to make better appointments,” Lippman said.
Under the existing system, "you look at the list, how do you know who's good?” he asked. "It doesn't work like that. So what do you fall back on? I know Jane Schmoe, she's very good.”
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Parties’Full-Court Press
How politics pervades the judiciary on Long Island
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By Jack Sirica
Staff Writer
A. GAIL PRUDENTI
JOHN GALASSO
JAMES M. CATTERSON
AT 38, Gail Prudenti was a bit on the young side to win a seat on the State Supreme Court when she ran in 1991. Besides that, no Suffolk County woman had ever been elected to the state's top trial court. And to top it all off, she had never been a judge.
Yet, no one who knew anything about Long Island politics would have bet against her.
Prudenti was the daughter of the late Suffolk County Republican Chairman Anthony Prudenti, whose political coups had included delivering for Ronald Reagan in 1980 the largest electoral plurality of any county in the nation.
But probably as important, Gail Prudenti also was close to then-Brookhaven Republican chairman John Powell. She was the godmother of Powell's son. Powell, a one-time town highway department heavy equipment operator, never had forgotten how Prudenti's father had helped him beat veteran State Assemb. I. William Bianchi.
"Her nomination was pretty well pre-determined," recalled John Cochrane, who was Suffolk Republican chairman at the time.
"I don't think it was ever discussed," Prudenti said. "It was almost like, ‘The next judgeship that came up, Gail, ... would be yours."'
Every November on Long Island, a judicial electoral process unfolds which is as political as any backroom deal to fill a seat in the State Assembly or a top post at Off-Track Betting.
If there is a bedrock concept in the judicial tradition of the United States, it is that the courts should take pains to stay at arm's length from other branches of government and the political system.
But far from renouncing their political ties once they take the bench, Long Island judges hire politically connected applicants for key courthouse positions, give lucrative receiverships to former campaign managers and politically active lawyers, and continue to pay homage to their party leaders at public events.
On Thursday night, delegates will gather in their parties' judicial nominating conventions to choose who will run this fall for the 9 vacancies on State Supreme Court, just as they gathered in May to pick the candidates for the 2 seats open on County Court. And those who will ultimately win will have been preordained by local political leaders long before any votes are cast.
"The process is controlled by politicians," said John Bracken, an Islandia attorney and former president of both the New York State Bar and the Suffolk County Bar Associations. "The net result is we're getting candidates who are not the best qualified for the job."
Victor Regan, law secretary to Nassau County Court Judge Daniel Cotter, put it more bluntly.
"If politicians selected their surgeons ... the way they do some of their judges," the former Republican county committeeman said, "there would be a lot of dead politicians."
Over the past nine months, Newsday has examined closely the partisan process that has spawned the 89 elected Supreme and County Court judges who preside over Long Island's most serious civil and criminal cases. Through more than 200 interviews with lawyers, politicians, court employees and the judges themselves, as well as in a detailed computer analysis of state court and campaign records, a picture has emerged of a system that is scrupulously inbred:
· Supreme Court and County Court judges on Long Island are selected through an overtly political process in which party service and loyalty are paramount, and judicial qualifications and merit not infrequently are afterthoughts. The backgrounds are well-prescribed -- loyal party workers, members of politically connected families or politicians who rate either a reward or a graceful exit after a political setback.
· Judges are elected after waging nominal campaigns which, by design, provide voters with only cursory information about the candidates' backgrounds and no facts at all about judicial philosophies and positions on issues. In this vacuum, voters overwhelmingly pull levers based solely on party loyalty, almost guaranteeing election to candidates with the Republican and Conservative Party endorsements.
· Judicial candidates raise thousands of dollars in campaign contributions, much of it from lawyers who appear before them. Despite an outright ban on political activity, the judges effectively return a sizeable percentage of the proceeds to the parties by purchasing tickets to political fund raisers.
· Fund-raising is only the most obvious arena of potential conflict between lawyers, judges and political leaders. Attorneys who appear in local courtrooms also sit on bar association panels that pass judgment on judicial candidates, honor judges at events, serve on their campaign committees and celebrate at often-lavish victory parties -- all the while in some cases as they aspire to judgeships themselves.
· The politicization of the judiciary extends far beyond the judges themselves, with party affiliation key to obtaining high-paid and influential court staff positions. In addition to honoring requests to find jobs for political friends, judges also reward those who helped them get elected by appointing them to run businesses in foreclosure and to evaluate complex disputes between litigants. Such attorneys sometimes earn thousands of dollars in a case.
Many of those who have set up and run the system see little wrong with it. And they say that the process, though political, produces a crop of good judges.
"It takes a lot to be a judge," said Nassau Republican Party leader Joseph Mondello. "It's not just being a legal scholar or first in your class at Harvard. It has to do with dealing with people. The legal qualifications are not the only thing that should be considered in the making of a judge."
But an increasing number of attorneys and legal experts argue that political ties have come to dwarf legal qualifications in the judicial selection process, sapping the quality of the bench on Long Island at a time of enormous pressure on the state court system.
Statewide, some 3.4 million new civil and criminal cases are filed each year. After New York City, Nassau and Suffolk Counties have the heaviest caseloads in the state. In Suffolk Supreme Court, for instance, new civil filings have jumped 21 percent since 1990.
The position of trial judge remains one of the most powerful in government. County Court judges, who run every 10 years, can sentence defendants to lengthy prison terms, and Supreme Court justices, who run every 14 years in a district covering Long Island, make decisions that often involve millions of dollars.
"Essentially, you have a judge who can decide virtually any aspect of your life, and you probably do better research on who your car mechanic is," said Susan Kluewer, a Garden City Democrat who has run unsuccessfully for Supreme Court in Nassau.
On Long Island, the face of the bench is almost exclusively white, male and Republican. Among the 89 elected County and Supreme Court justices, there are seven women and two blacks. There are nine Democrats and six Conservatives.
In a series of stories over the next five days, Newsday will detail the political connections, professional backgrounds, money-raising practices and hiring patterns of the Long Island judiciary. But perhaps more than anything else, the individual stories of the judges themselves illustrate the thoroughly partisan character of the road to the bench on Long Island:
A. GAIL PRUDENTI
<Back to Judge List>
For any other politician, it would have been a dark moment.
Back in 1989, Gail Prudenti badly wanted to become a Suffolk County District Court judge, and earned the bar association's top rating. But, then-Brookhaven Town Republican leader Walter Hazlitt had more pressing concerns. He'd made a deal to support another candidate -- who was rated unqualified -- to win Conservative Party backing for the other town GOP candidates. Prudenti would have to wait.
"Sometimes it is your turn, and sometimes it isn't," Prudenti said later.
With that, Prudenti, though a novice judicial candidate, showed a firm grasp of the political code: Once in a while, a candidate has to step back in order to get ahead later.
Prudenti's story is a textbook example of how potential contenders reach their goals. They work diligently for the party, cultivate political allies, stand in line until their turns arrive to receive a judicial nomination and, at that point, raise as much money as possible from the legal community.
Certainly, Prudenti's ascent to the Supreme Court also was helped by her late father's allies and her longtime friendship with former Suffolk Republican leader John Powell, who served in the post from 1995 until he was indicted on federal conspiracy charges last year.
"I would not be a Supreme Court justice if not for John Powell," Prudenti said in 1991 when she was sworn in. "My dad said, ‘Gail, I want you and John to be good to each other.' I know he's up there smiling his big smile."
Prudenti's ties to Powell are both personal and professional.
Prudenti is godmother to Powell's son John W. Powell Jr. Prudenti has also hired Powell's mother, Theresa, for various court positions. Over the years, Theresa Powell has risen from being a secretary earning $29,000 a year to her current job, in which she earns $71,000 a year for her work supervising estates without wills.
Theresa Powell got that job after Prudenti was elected surrogate judge in 1995 with Powell's backing. A surrogate judge oversees wills and estates, and has the power to make paid appointments to lawyers.
Prudenti, who is married to Suffolk County Attorney Robert Cimino, also had served as Powell's personal attorney before she first went on to the bench.
One of her tasks was incorporating a liquor store in Coram for Powell. Later, though, federal and local investigators briefly scrutinized an unsecured $15,000 loan she made to Powell, which Prudenti said was for the ailing store. She made the loan in May, 1991, the same month Powell submitted her name to be screened for a Supreme Court nomination.
Prudenti said the timing was coincidental.
"Honestly ... maybe I should have thought about it, but I didn't," Prudenti said. "These are my personal friends."
Prudenti added that Powell, "paid back the loan in full years ago," with interest.
Prudenti's campaign committees also have shown a knack for tapping the judge's many contacts for donations.
Over the years, the largest contributors to Prudenti's campaign committees have been the members of the high-powered law firm of Lysaght, Lysaght and Kramer. When Prudenti was in private legal practice, she did estate work that the firm referred to her.
The members of the Lake Success firm, which closed after two of its partners were convicted of looting a police union pension fund, gave Prudenti a total of $25,000 for her Supreme Court race, nearly a third of her funds. Prudenti's total of more than $72,000 that year represented the second highest amount raised by any State Supreme or County Court justice on Long Island over the past 14 years, according to state records.
However she got her judgeship, many attorneys say that Prudenti is a smart, charismatic leader who has proven to be a good manager since being named Suffolk's administrative judge earlier this year.
"All I can say is the courts of Suffolk work better than any courts of any of the counties in the metro area," said James Reynolds, president of the Suffolk County Bar Association. "She has a good mind for the law and is able to get down to the key issues in the case very quickly."
Prudenti is certainly proud of her accomplishments in the court system, but almost a decade into her tenure as a judge, she retains enthusiasm for the political life. Indeed, she feels strongly that the two can go hand-in-hand.
Now 46, Prudenti enjoys telling young lawyers who want to be judges, "Don't be afraid to get involved in politics.
"If you look at everyone who is a successful judge, from Sandra Day O'Connor on ... they have all been involved in the political process," said Prudenti. "It is one of the keys to success."
DIPAOLA
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The statuette of the elephant with the broken rear end sits on a side table in the Mineola chambers of Supreme Court Justice Andrew DiPaola.
DiPaola, 75, recalls that, at first, he wasn't terribly happy when he accidentally dropped the statue. But then he realized that the elephant could serve as a useful symbol. It reminds DiPaola of how, in his last election in 1986, he "kicked the ass of the Republican Party."
One-party domination has, in his view, harmed the quality of the bench.
"You have to have different points of view," said DiPaola, one of only three Democrats in Nassau on the Supreme Court. "Some people have been raised in a cloistered atmosphere. This is America, where we have a mix of different backgrounds, different aspirations. You have to recognize that in the judicial system, too, and have that reflected in the bench. It's fairer that way. It's not always one-sided."
DiPaola had it comparatively easy when he first ran for Supreme Court in 1972. Then, he benefited from a "cross-endorsement" policy in which the major parties agreed to support each other's candidates. That allowed a small though steady stream of Democrats to get onto the bench.
DiPaola, a former mayor of Glen Cove, was no stranger to politics, having almost beaten Republican Ralph Caso for the Nassau county executive's job in 1970. In fact, Republicans supported DiPaola for the judgeship in large part to remove one of the Democrats' most formidable contenders.
But by the time DiPaola's 14-year term was ending in 1986, Mondello, the Nassau Republican leader, had quit endorsing Democrats.
The $56,000 that DiPaola raised for his Supreme Court re-election campaign still stands as one of the largest sums any Long Island justice has amassed. DiPaola also armed himself with the endorsements of all the minor parties, including the Conservatives.
At the time, DiPaola was blunt in his assessment of Mondello. He called him a "political pig" for trying to win all the judgeships for the Republicans.
DiPaola still sticks by the sentiment. But just as his charm and political instincts helped him survive in office, they have also eased his way in the clubby environment of the courthouse, where he cultivated personal relationships with key figures in both parties.
In 1994, the judge appointed Stanley Harwood, a former Nassau Democratic leader and retired judge, as a court receiver, an often sought-after position to run a business or property whose ownership is in dispute. Harwood made $41,200 from one case, records show.
"It can be a way of saying, ‘Thanks for all the time you've spent in public service,"' Harwood said, arguing that, in general, no one is harmed by politically influenced appointments of competent lawyers. "There are certain things parties have to do to make it attractive for people to remain active in politics, and what they do is hold out the prospect that some good work will come your way."
DiPaola said, "Party politics made no difference to me ... He was qualified to do the job.”
When it has come to hiring key courthouse staff, DiPaola has willingly given jobs to candidates sent his way by Republican friends and colleagues.
Once, then-U.S. Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, whom DiPaola had known when they served together on the Nassau County Board of Supervisors, called to ask if DiPaola could "do something" for a prospective law clerk from D'Amato's hometown of Island Park. The applicant needed a job because the judge for whom he had been working, former County Court Judge B. Marc Mogil, a Conservative, had been removed from the bench for harassing an attorney.
"I guess it was out that my line was open," DiPaola said of the hiring slots that the judges control.
DiPaola hired the D'Amato candidate as his law clerk. Eventually, the clerk was hired in the Supreme Court law department. At that point, the judge's hiring "line" came open again.
This time, it was another staunch Republican, Nassau Administrative Judge Edward McCabe, who had a name for DiPaola. The candidate was vice president of the Rockville Centre Republican Club.
DiPaola hired the clerk, Anthony Paradiso, and sent him to work in the law department. Paradiso later joined the staff of Republican Supreme Court Justice Peter Skelos, for whom Paradiso had campaigned.
DiPaola said it isn't surprising that he would help members of the party he loves to whip at the polls, because he looks for quality, not political affiliation.
Now, with DiPaola nearing retirement, his own secretary, Nelzi Kucich, will be looking for work in the courthouse. Until recently, Kucich had what in Nassau County amounts to a crippling handicap: She was a registered Democrat.
Kucich is helping herself as much as possible, however. She recently switched her party affiliation to Republican.
"Someone may have said, ‘You're in Nassau County now. How do you think we got here?"' DiPaola said.
JOHN GALASSO
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He started in Republican politics in the second grade in the 1950s, passing out "I Like Ike" buttons for Dwight Eisenhower's presidential campaign. And as he grew up, Nassau Acting Supreme Court Justice John Galasso became intent on engineering a political career for himself.
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