Special Commission on the Future of the New York State Courts

community, which rightly expects efficiency at all levels of
government.
Reflecting these concerns, a statewide coalition of
business organizations has recently come together specifically to
support court restructuring. These groups include the Business
Council of New York State, the Partnership for New York City,
the Long Island Association, the Westchester County Association
and the Metropolitan Development Association of Central New
York (collectively known as the Business Coalition for Court
Efficiency). In a letter of support (included in Appendix iii), this
coalition states that “[a] confusing and redundant court system
is not good for the state economy. The business community will
support efforts to secure amendment of the New York State
Constitution to create a two-tier court system that will greatly
improve the administration of justice and result in significant
savings in time and expense to individuals and business.”
A Specific Example: Families in Crisis
New York’s court structure can have disastrous
consequences for some of our most vulnerable citizens. Families,
particularly poor families, can spend years shuttling back and
forth between Family Court, Supreme Court, and Criminal Court,
only to end up with inconsistent results arising out of the same or
substantially similar facts. Divorce actions in New York State
are brought in Supreme Court, yet other family disputes such as
custody and visitation proceedings are often adjudicated in
Family Court – and rarely is the judge presiding over one part of
a family’s case educated about what has happened in another part
of the same case. Not only is this inconvenient and expensive for
families that cannot afford the waste of time or money, it can also
be dangerous, as illustrated below, particularly for women and
children who have been victims of abuse. A few real-life
examples illustrate this point:
“Specific instances of the horror
presented by the manner in
which we divide resolution of
family disputes are not hard to
find.”
– Michael Cardozo,
October 1997
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A Court System for the Future, February 2007 37