The Fund For Modern Courts and Proskauer hosted representatives from a diverse coalition of organizations in New York State and leaders of the state bar at our New York office on May 3 to discuss the necessity of court reform in New York.
The keynote speaker, Chief Administrative Judge Lawrence K. Marks, laid out three primary areas of concern. First, he explained that the court’s structure itself, which consists of 11 overlapping trial courts with different levels of jurisdiction, is “confusing, cumbersome, and complicated.” He stressed that adopting a simplified structure not only would relieve administrative costs but would also better serve the public. To help illustrate his point, he added that Article VI of the New York Constitution (the highly detailed provision concerning the judiciary) contains 16,000 words as compared to the judiciary article in the U.S. Constitution which contains 375 words.