Judith S. Kaye: A Chief Judge for Families and Children by Andrew I. SchepardCall Number: 55 Family Law Quarterly 239
Publication Date: 2021-2022
Judith S. Kaye served as the first female associate judge of the New
York Court of Appeals (the state's highest court) from 1983-1993, and
as the court's first female chief judge from 1993 until her mandatory
retirement in 2008 at the age of 70.1 As chief judge, she played a dual role:
presiding over the Court of Appeals and serving as the administrative head
of the sprawling New York State Unified Court System, which, at the time
of her death in 2016, had a budget of $2.5 billion and 16,000 employees.2
Chief Judge Kaye's extraordinarily eventful judicial tenure confronted:
- September 11th: It fell to Chief Judge Kaye to rally the court
system after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on
September 11, 2001, when three court officers lost their lives.
Family law with skills ten years later: Experiential education in the introductory family law course by 
If We Build It, They Might Come: Bridging the Implementation Gap Between ADR Services and Separating and Divorcing Families by