By JODI SOKOLOWSKI
Buffalo Law Journal

The Special Commission on the Future of the New York State Courts released a report Wednesday of findings and recommendations to improve the effectiveness, efficiency and quality of New York's justice courts.

The report is based on the most extensive review of the justice-court system in the state's history, which included visits to town and village courts in every judicial district, Kaye said.

"We offer a pragmatic middle ground, with specific recommendations that build on the strengths of these courts and effectively address their shortcomings," said chairman Carey Dunne, a partner at the New York City law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell.

The commission's recommendations included the following steps:

• Encouraging the state Legislature to reduce the number of justice courts, allowing facilities and security upgrades at the courts that remain and possibly enabling higher judicial salaries, which could encourage more qualified candidates to seek office;

• Proposing the promulgation of minimum standards to ensure that all justice courts are safe and fit for judicial proceedings;

• Enacting a minimum age of 25 for incoming justices and a minimum education requirement of a two-year degree from an accredited college;

• Granting defendants who appear before a nonattorney judge in a misdemeanor criminal case an option to have their cases heard by an attorney judge; and

• Considering an increase in state funding through the expansion of the Justice Court Assistance Program, an application-based grant program, and conducting a study of the courts' fine and fee policies.

Williamsville Village Justice Hon. Jeffrey Voelkl, chair of the Bar Association of Erie County's Practice & Procedure in Justice Courts Committee, said he welcomes the reforms and agrees that "this is a prudent middle ground."

"The reality is that the justice courts handle a Herculean case load in an extremely cost-effective manner," said Voelkl, also an acting Buffalo City Court judge and a partner at Robshaw & Associates PC. "That is not to say that the system could not be improved."

Kristin Langdon Arcuri, chair of the Bar Association's Practice & Procedure in Family Court Committee, said the report is a "good starting point" but "the proposals are far-reaching."

"I think that some of the proposals create as many questions as they're attempting to answer," said Arcuri, a partner at Watson Bennett Colligan Johnson & Schechter LLP.

She expressed concern that the defendants' option to request an attorney judge "creates a perception that a nonattorney judge can't do the same job as an attorney judge."

"The report clearly says they don't want to get away from the nonattorney judge, but the recommendation to allow for that opt-out seems to contradict that finding," Arcuri said.

The report can be found at www.nycourts.gov/whatsnew.