amny.com42%
Mamdani selects 18 former judges, law school professors, advocate attorneys to join group helping to pick new judges 7%
By Isabella Gallo11%
7/23/2026, 9:15:43 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 19 faulty reasoning types, including Halo Effect, Availability Heuristic, and Optimism Bias, with Appeal to Authority as the most egregious example at 21.7% saturation with 436 hits. Analysis detected 1,847 faulty-reasoning hits from 2,013 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 23.6% and a BS Rank of 7% (19,734 of 21,203 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 93.10% of the article peer group.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani took a step toward fulfilling a campaign promise to demystify how city judges are appointed on Wednesday, announcing a group of 18 former judges, law school professors, Legal Aid attorneys, public defenders and youth, consumer and worker rights lawyers to join a group tasked with recommending people to be the city’s next judges.
The group will join the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary (MACJ), which evaluates and recommends people to become judges on the city’s criminal and family courts and interim judges on the city’s civil courts.
They were selected by local law schools, Mamdani’s office, the state’s Chief Judge Rowan Wilson and the presiding justices in the two Appellate Divisions that fall in New York City, the First Department’s Dianne Renwick and the Second Department’s Hector LaSalle.
The appointments follow a January executive order Mamdani signed requiring the committee to engage the wider legal community in the judicial selection process, including public defenders, attorneys who represent parents and children in family court and those working in indigent legal services.
He tasked Ali Najmi, his former election attorney, to chair the committee and its search process.
“The Committee will help ensure that our judicial system reflects the city it serves, applies the rule of law universally and does so without favor," Mamdani said.
"These members bring a diverse range of legal expertise, and I am confident they will carry out this important responsibility with fairness, independence and integrity.”
The new slate of appointees is meant to ensure a more diverse array of advocate voices are heard in the judicial selection process.
It includes six current and former public defense and Legal Aid attorneys, including Julia Hernandez, Martin LaFalce, Amber Baylor and Jared M.
Trujillo, who previously served as president of the Association of Legal Aid attorneys.
It includes two former prosecutors: Mina Malik, who previously held leadership positions in the Queens and Brooklyn District Attorney’s Offices and now works for and is the CEO of personal injury practice The Cochran Firm teaches at Harvard Law School, Thomas Principe, who formerly worked in the Queens County District Attorney Office and is now a personal injury and medical malpractice attorney, The group also includes Dennis Fan, who used to work in the New York Attorney General’s Office where he handled consumer protection cases helped coordinate regulatory reforms to DACA at the start of the Biden era.
Appointees also include four people with lengthy careers in family and divorce law, including Jill Soffiyah Elijah, who formed the Alliance of Families for Justice and Juan Luciano, who’s spent over a decade advocating for immigrant families.
A group of six current and former law professors from Columbia Law School, CUNY Law, Harvard Law and St.
John’s also has a seat.
“The formation of the full committee marks an important step toward ensuring that judicial vacancies are filled through a fair, rigorous and accessible process,” Wilson said in a statement.
“I look forward to continued collaboration to support a judiciary that serves all New Yorkers with integrity.”
The committee is expected to recommend their first slate of potential judges to fill current judicial vacancies by October, a City Hall spokesperson told amNewYork.
Mamdani’s January executive order on increasing transparency in the judicial selection process also required an online portal where the public can clearly and easily see all those recommended to become judges and apply online to become a judge themselves.
Those pages are now available on the MACJ website, nyc.gov/site/macj/application/application.page .
The appointees received nods of approval from both top defense attorneys and prosecutors, with The Legal Aid Society’s Attorney in Chief Twyla Carter and Manhattan District Alvin Bragg issuing statements in support of their appointment.
“The nominees bring diverse perspectives and deep expertise from across the legal profession — from public defense, including former Legal Aid attorneys, and civil rights advocacy to academia, private practice and public service,” Carter said.
“A judicial selection process that draws on this range of experience strengthens both our courts and the public’s confidence in them.
“A well-staffed judiciary is critical to the fairness and effectiveness of our criminal justice system, and I look forward to the appointment of additional qualified judges,” Bragg said.
Below, find additional information on each appointee.
Dianisbeth Acquie: Currently serves as the Assistant Dean of the Office of Judicial Careers at Columbia Law School.
She began her legal career as a litigation associate at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP and previously clerked for Chief Judge Margo K.
Brodie in the U.S.
District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
She graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College with a degree in English and earned her Juris Doctor cum laude from Harvard Law School, where she was a student attorney and Vice President of Membership for the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau .
Jill Soffiyah Elijah has practiced criminal and family law for over four decades and is the founder and former Executive Director of the Alliance of Families for Justice.
Before that, Elijah was the executive director of the Correctional Association of NY, deputy director and clinical instructor at the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School, director of the Defender Clinic at the City University of New York School of Law and a Neighborhood Defender Services and Legal Aid attorney.
Earlier in her career, Elijah worked as a Supervising Attorney at the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, a Staff Attorney at the Juvenile Rights Division of the Legal Aid Society and in private practice.
Julia Hernandez is an associate law professor at the CUNY School of Law where she co-founded and co-directs the Family Defense Practicum and Clinic where she challenges government surveillance and the separation of families of color and advocates for policies that support family well-being.
Before joining CUNY’s faculty, Hernandez was an attorney with Brooklyn Defender Services’ Family Defense Practice and Catholic Migration Services.
Everett Hopkins is the managing attorney of Hopkins Law Group, LLC and law professor who previously served as general counsel for the New York City Criminal Justice Agency.
Prior to this position, he held key positions with the New York City Housing Preservation and Development and Fraud Enforcement with the Internal Revenue Service.
Martin LaFalce serves as Associate Professor of Clinical Law at St.
John’s University School of Law.
Prior, he spent 14 years as a public defender at the Legal Aid Society, 10 years as a trial attorney in Manhattan and a policy attorney in Legal Aid’s Criminal Defense Practice.
He began his career representing clients at Rikers Island charged with violating the conditions of their parole.
Juan Luciano is a divorce lawyer who began his career working for immigrant families seeking to adjust their status in the United States.
In 2013, he joined the assigned counsel panel for the Appellate Division First Department, serving in the Bronx and Manhattan Family Court.
He worked with indigent families, adults and children.
Mina Malik is the CEO & executive partner of The Cochran Firm – New York and on the teaching faculty at Harvard Law School.
She is a civil rights attorney, trial lawyer and former prosecutor with over 25 years’ experience in criminal and civil litigation.
Malik has held leadership positions in the Queens and Brooklyn District Attorney’s Offices, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia and the D.C.
Public Defender Service.
Sherbune Paul is an attorney with 10 years of experience and serves as a Senior Associate at Russo & Gould LLP.
She’s previously worked as Supervising Attorney at the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission and as a managing attorney at Bailey Law Firm.
Court of Appeals Chief Judge Rowan Wilson’s Picks
Amber Baylor is the founding director of the Criminal Defense Clinic and Clinical Professor of Law at Columbia Law School.
Prior to teaching, Baylor was a staff attorney with Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem and a trial attorney for Federal Defenders of San Diego.
Judge Kristen Booth Glen has been a judge, a legal educator, a practicing lawyer and an advocate for diversity in the profession and the court system.
Glen was elected to the Civil Court of the City of New York in 1980.
Since, she has served in the Criminal Court and as a judge in both criminal and civil New York Supreme Court, where she also served in the Matrimonial and Malpractice Parts.
In 1992 she was appointed to the Appellate Term and became the third Dean of CUNY School of Law three years later.
Camila Popin is the principal attorney at Popin Law, P.C.
After law school, she worked for a firm where she concentrated in the areas of divorce and family law.
In 2004, she opened her own law practice in Queens County concentrating in family law and divorces and representing clients throughout the City of New York, Long Island and Westchester.
Judge Milton Tingling was the first African-American County Clerk of New York County.
He clerked for Harlem-based judges Justice Milton H.
Richardson, Justice Wilford O’Connor and Justice Dennis Edwards, Jr, and ran a solo practice on West 125th Street.
In 1986, he became the first Black person to ever be elected to a judgeship from the 7th Municipal Court District and is the founder of The Initiative, a volunteer project that educates and assists formerly incarcerated individuals.
First Department Presiding Justice Dianne Renwick’s Picks
Joseph Drayton is a partner at Proskauer Rose LLP and is a first-chair trial lawyer with over two decades of experience representing companies in intellectual property and complex commercial litigation.
He recently received the United States President’s Volunteer Service Award from former President Joseph R.
Biden for his leadership activities in the legal community.
Danielle Jones is the Assistant Managing Attorney at Proskauer Rose LLP and Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School.
Previously, she was deputy managing attorney of the Criminal Defense Practice of Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem.
She previously worked in the New York State Court System as a principal court attorney and began her legal career as a Legal Aid criminal defense staff attorney.
Second Department Presiding Justice Hector LaSalle’s Picks
Judge William Mastro was elected to the New York State Supreme Court in November 1992.
He was appointed to the Appellate Division, Second Department, in June of 2002 and served as a justice of that court until December 2021.
He currently serves as a member of the Governor’s Appellate Division Second Department Screening Committee.
Thomas Principe has been a partner at Kramer, Dillof, Livingston & Moore in Manhattan, representing injured parties in the specialty of personal injury and medical malpractice for 37 years.
He is a former prosecutor with the Queens County District Attorney’s Office.
Principe served in the New York Army National Guard for 33 years, during which he was awarded the Legion of Merit by the U.S.
Army and the Meritorious Service Medal by the State of New York.
Dennis Fan is the Founder and Director of Columbia Law School’s Appellate Litigation Clinic.
He previously served as a senior assistant solicitor general in the New York Attorney General’s Office, where he handled major business fraud and consumer protection appeals, and before that worked in the U.S.
Department of Justice’s Civil Division on high-profile cases involving national security, presidential powers and federal administrative law.
At the start of the Biden Administration, he served as counsel to the assistant attorney general, helping coordinate regulatory reforms to DACA and implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act.
Jared M.
Trujillo is an Associate Professor of Law at CUNY School of Law, where he teaches Constitutional Law, Legislative Drafting, Critical Race Theory and courses focused on the criminal legal system.
Before joining the faculty, he served as Senior Policy Counsel at the New York Civil Liberties Union.
He previously served as President of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, UAW Local 2325 and worked as a juvenile defense and criminal defense attorney at The Legal Aid Society in New York City.
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